Digital Alabama News

Trump’s Truth Social Is A ‘Rightwing Echo Chamber,’ Elon Musk Says: ‘Might As Well Call It Trumpet’ https://digitalalabamanews.com/trumps-truth-social-is-a-rightwing-echo-chamber-elon-musk-says-might-as-well-call-it-trumpet/ Amidst renewed plans to buy Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired a shot at Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, calling it a “rightwing echo chamber” in an interview with Financial Times. “It might as well be called Trumpet,” Musk said. Musk said that Truth Social is indicative of social media splintering into various politically charged silos. His comments echo previous ones he made this past summer opposing Twitter’s decision to ban Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection on the grounds that his tweets incited violence. “I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump. I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” Musk said at the time. Also Read: Elon Musk Has 3 Weeks to Close Twitter Deal or Lawsuit Will Proceed, Judge Rules Musk has spent the past few months in a legal battle with Twitter after backing out of plans to acquire the social media platform over claims that Twitter was not doing enough to delete bot accounts on the site. Now, less than two weeks before Musk and Twitter were set to go to trial over the reneged deal, Musk is offering once again to buy the site for $44 billion, the same proposed price initially offered back in April. “I’m not doing Twitter for the money. It’s not like I’m trying to buy some yacht and I can’t afford it,” Musk told the Financial Times. “I don’t own any boats. But I think it’s important that people have a maximally trusted and inclusive means of exchanging ideas and that it should be as trusted and transparent as possible.” While a judge has postponed the trial because of the new proposal, giving Musk until Oct. 28 to complete the deal. But Twitter says they cannot trust that the billionaire’s offer is in good faith, calling Musk’s offer an “invitation to further mischief and delay” in new court filings on Thursday. Also Read: Twitter Shares Wobble as Elon Musk Unveils Plan to Fold Platform Into Super-App ‘X’ “Now, on the eve of trial, [Musk] declares [he] intend[s] to close after all. ‘Trust us,’ they say, ‘we mean it this time,’ and so they ask to be relieved from a reckoning on the merits,” the filing written by Twitter’s lawyers states. Meanwhile, Truth Social has been having some difficulties. Last month, investors pulled $138.5 million from the blank check company linked to Trump’s social media platform, and Digital World Acquisition Corp., which was supposed to deliver $1.3 billion to help the former president take on Twitter, has changed its address to a mailbox at a UPS store. The change of address came in the same disclosure that said investors had been pulling cash from the venture, which has generally disappointed after pulling in far fewer users than hoped. Also Read: Chris Christie Says He May Run Against Trump for the GOP Presidential Nomination in 2024 (Video) Read More…

Brian Robinson Jr. To Play 6 Weeks After Being Shot https://digitalalabamanews.com/brian-robinson-jr-to-play-6-weeks-after-being-shot/ Six weeks after being shot twice, running back Brian Robinson Jr. will be in uniform on Sunday for the Washington Commanders’ game against the Tennessee Titans. Washington removed Robinson from reserve/non-football injury on Saturday and restored the rookie from Alabama to its active roster, making him eligible to play on Sunday. MORE NFL: · RUDY FORD CONTRIBUTES FOR PACKERS IN UNEXPECTED WAY · PATRIOTS MAKE MOVES AT QUARTERBACK · FORMER ALABAMA PREP STAR BECOMES LAMAR JACKSON Robinson returned to full practice on Wednesday, and after what Commanders coach Ron Rivera termed “a good week” on Friday, is poised to make his NFL debut on Sunday. RELATED: BRIAN ROBINSON JR. ON HIS FIRST PRACTICE SINCE BEING SHOT: ‘JUST A BEAUTIFUL DAY’ On Aug. 29, Robinson was shot in the hip and knee when he was accosted by two armed teens seeking to steal his Dodge Challenger Hellcat in Washington, according to District of Columbia police, who reported Robinson wrested a gun away from one of the boys before being shot by the other. Law-enforcement authorities think the assailants were from 15 through 17 years old, but no arrests have been made. After being shot, Robinson was taken to a hospital, where he had surgery before being released the next day. Washington ranks 21st in the NFL with 402 rushing yards this season. A 1,000-yard rusher last season, Antonio Gibson has 173 yards and two touchdowns on 53 rushing attempts to lead the Commanders four games into the 2022 schedule. Former Central-Phenix City star J.D. McKissic is second with 65 yards on 17 carries and ranks second on the team with 19 receptions. “It’s hopefully going to be a nice shot in the arm,” Rivera said on Monday about Robinson’s pending return. “Hopefully, we get what we were expecting to get, and that was the other quality running back that we’re looking for.” A prep standout at Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa, Robinson joined the Commanders in the third round of the NFL Draft on April 29 after running for 1,343 yards and 14 touchdowns and catching 35 passes for 296 yards for Alabama during the 2021 season. The Commanders and Titans square off at noon Sunday at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland. Robinson’s return makes a former Alabama running back available for each team on Sunday, with two-time NFL rushing champ Derrick Henry the Titans’ top ball-carrier. RELATED: DERRICK HENRY HITS RUSHING MILESTONE IN TITANS’ VICTORY Although they didn’t play together at Alabama, the former Crimson Tide running backs are friends. “I talked to him when he was at Bama and developed a relationship with him,” Henry said, “and whenever he was there playing throughout the season and when he got drafted and getting back to being able to play football now, so we talk all the time. … “I’m just glad he’s able to play football and do something he loves.” FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

Women Students Tell Iran's President To 'get Lost' As Unrest Rages, Activists Say https://digitalalabamanews.com/women-students-tell-irans-president-to-get-lost-as-unrest-rages-activists-say/ DUBAI, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Female students in Tehran chanted “get lost” as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited their university campus on Saturday and condemned protesters enraged by the death of a young woman in custody, activists said. Raisi addressed professors and students at Alzahra University in Tehran, reciting a poem that equated “rioters” with flies, as nationwide demonstrations entered a fourth week. “They imagine they can achieve their evil goals in universities,” state TV reported. “Unbeknownst to them, our students and professors are alert and will not allow the enemy to realise their evil goals.” Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com A video posted on Twitter by the activist 1500tasvir website showed what it said were women students chanting “Raisi get lost” and “Mullahs get lost” as the president visited their campus. An Iranian state coroner’s report denied that 22-year-old Mahsa Amini had died due to blows to the head and limbs while in morality police custody and linked her death to pre-existing medical conditions, state media said on Friday. Amini, an Iranian Kurd, was arrested in Tehran on Sept. 13 for wearing “inappropriate attire”, and died three days later. Her death has ignited nationwide demonstrations, marking the biggest challenge to Iran’s clerical leaders in years. Women have removed their veils in defiance of the clerical establishment while furious crowds called for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The government has described the protests as a plot by Iran’s enemies including the United States, accusing armed dissidents – among others – of violence in which at least 20 members of the security forces have been reported killed. Rights groups say more than 185 people have been killed, hundreds injured and thousands arrested by security forces confronting protests. After a call for mass demonstrations on Saturday, security forces shot at protesters and used tear gas in the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj and Saqez, according to the Iranian human rights group Hengaw. In Sanandaj, capital of the northwestern Kurdistan province, one man lay dead in his car while a woman screamed “shameless”, according to Hengaw, which said he had been shot by security forces after he honked his horn as a sign of protest. But a senior police official repeated the claim by security forces that they did not use live bullets and that the man had been killed by “counter-revolutionaries” (armed dissidents), the state news agency IRNA reported. A video shared on social media showed a young woman lying unconscious on the ground after she was apparently shot in the northeastern city of Mashhad. Protesters gathered around her to help. The Norway-based group Iran Human Rights said on its website that at least 185 people, including at least 19 children, had been killed in the protests. The highest number of killings occurred in the restive Sistan-Baluchistan province with half the recorded deaths, it said. CALL FOR UNITY After a weekly meeting, President Raisi and Iran’s head of judiciary and parliament speaker called for unity. “Currently, the Iranian society needs the unity of all its strata regardless of language, religion and ethnicity to overcome the hostility and division spread by anti-Iranians,” they said in a statement carried by state media. A social media video showed protesters marching in the northern city of Babol and several posts said security forces had surrounded students demonstrating on a university campus. Hengaw also carried a video of emergency personnel trying to resuscitate a person and said one protester had died after being shot in the abdomen by security forces in Sanandaj. Reuters could not verify the video. One of the schools in Saqez city’s square was filled with girls chanting “woman, life, freedom”, Hengaw reported. The widely followed 1500tasvir Twitter account also reported shootings at protesters in the two northwestern Kurdish cities. A university student who was on his way to join protests in Tehran said he was not afraid of being arrested or even killed. “They can kill us, arrest us but we will not remain silent anymore. Our classmates are in jail. How can we remain silent?” the student, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters. Iran’s semi-official news agencies played down the protests across the capital Tehran. The ISNA agency reported “limited” demonstrations in about 10 areas of the city and said many Bazaar traders had shut their shops for fear of damage caused by the unrest, denying there was a strike. Internet watchdog NetBlocks said that the internet had been cut in Sanadaj again amid protests in Kurdish areas in the northwest. The group said on Friday that “internet remains regionally disrupted across #Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, #Iran, seven days after an escalation of violence and civilian killings by security forces”. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Writing by Michael Georgy Editing by Ros Russell and Nick Macfie Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More…

Rhulani Mokwena On Danger Seychelles Foes La Passe Pose https://digitalalabamanews.com/rhulani-mokwena-on-danger-seychelles-foes-la-passe-pose/ Rhulani Mokwena has shared information that his side has gathered about their CAF Champions League second preliminary round opponents La Passe. The Tshwane giants have set their sights on winning this season’s competition after they were surprisingly knocked out by Petro de Luanda in the quarter-finals of the 2021/22 edition. In this campaign, Masandawana were among six clubs who were exempt from the first preliminary round, the others being Wydad Casablanca, Esperance de Tunis, Raja Casablanca, Al Ahly and TP Mazembe. ALSO READ: KAIZER CHIEFS: FIVE MOST VALUABLE PLAYERS – UPDATED Mokwena says they are expecting a “direct team” with “a lot of physicality” from the Seychelles side. “We’ve already started trying to get as much information about the opposition as we possibly can, fortunately they played Volcan club in the previous round and we were able to get footage of that match,” Mokwena told Sundowns.co.za. “They have quite a few interesting football players and a few interesting schemes from a tactical perspective. Already you can see a very direct team that has a lot of physicality because of the profile, they have some players that already play for the Seychelles National team, two Madagascans and very good players that represent the national teams.” Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Rulani Mokwena. Photo: Sundowns.co.za ALSO READ: GAVIN HUNT OPENS UP ON BEING SACKED BY KAIZER CHIEFS RHULANI MOKWENA ON KEY PLAYERS FOR LA PASSE In outlining the key players of the opposition, Mokwena said: “They’ve got two very good young players that were sent to train in Germany two years ago. “They have the Aboudou [Affandi Aboudou and Assad Aboudou] twins, they are very good players also and show very good potential, and at the age of 18 years or 19 years old they also got invites to go and train in Germany. We are talking about a team that has some interesting players, like I’ve said some players we don’t know much about and we’ve had to dig deep .” “Their striker [Brandon] Fanchette is very explosive, very mobile and very quick to play with the space behind and presses very, very well. We’ve done our homework and again we will be playing with a team that plays with three center backs, wingbacks and we’ve got a responsibility to try to move the reinforced block. ALSO READ: BRANDON TRUTER BREAKS SILENCE AFTER AMAZULU EXIT “We will prepare and try as much as possible to give the players all the information about the plans and what to expect and hopefully we can be ready and get a very good result on Sunday leading upto the second leg on Friday.” Due to the unfavorable playing conditions and not having a suitable venue in Seychelles, Bafana Ba Style will provide grounds for both the home and away encounters of this clash. The first match will take place on Sunday, 9 October at Loftus Versfeld. Kick-off is at 16:00. ALSO READ: DSTV PREMIERSHIP: FIVE PLAYERS SUSPENDED FOR THE WEEKEND ACTION Read More…

‘GameDay’ Crew Breaks Down Alabama-Texas A&M, Georgia-Auburn: ‘This One Gets Ugly Early And Often’ https://digitalalabamanews.com/gameday-crew-breaks-down-alabama-texas-am-georgia-auburn-this-one-gets-ugly-early-and-often/ It’s an Auburn-Alabama doubleheader on “SEC on CBS” on Saturday. Auburn travels to No. 2 Georgia for a 2:30 p.m. kick, while No. 1 Alabama hosts Texas A&M at 7 p.m. The games will be live streamed on Paramount+ (free trial), fuboTV (free trial) and DirecTV Stream (free trial). Whether or not either game will be competitive is yet to be seen, but, if the ESPN’s “College GameDay” breakdown of the games is any indication, they won’t be. While the Jimbo Fisher-Nick Saban offseason feud was a talking point early Saturday morning, Kirk Herbstreit believes it won’t be the gas that fuels the Tide’s fire against the Aggies. “I don’t know if coach Saban had a chuckle with it,” Herbstreit said. “They’re good friends. Friends argue. Brothers argue. I get it, but this Texas A&M team right now is limping into this game. To me, it is a perfect storm. “Last year’s loss in College Station will have more to do with getting the players ready for this game than anything Nick Saban can say to making it personal with Jimbo Fisher. This one gets ugly early and often. Bama huge over A&M. RELATED: Kansas fans take aim at Alabama, Nick Saban, SEC The Tide has won the last four at home against Texas A&M by an average of 32 points. “I don’t think they are friends anymore,” David Pollack responded about Saban and Fisher. “They might have been friends, but, if they are friends, I’d be shocked because of the vitriol and the hatred that was spewed between them. “It is interesting with (quarterback) Bryce Young getting banged up. I don’t think he is going to play in this football game. If he does, that’s a problem for A&M. It’s a problem for A&M regardless. “Here’s Jalen Milroe. What do you want to know about him? Think Jalen Hurts vs. Tua. It’s more of a running-style quarterback. … It’ll change. It will highlight more players differently, but he will definitely run the football and be a big factor with his legs. Meanwhile, Georgia struggled in wins against Kent State and Missouri as it prepares for Auburn. “I’m not excited about what I’ve seen, but I will give them credit,” Desmond Howard said about Georgia. “They made some end-game adjustments that allowed them to win, especially last week. They could have easily lost to Missouri. “If you’re going to be up there like with the Alabamas, you’re going to have bring your best week in and week out because you know every time a team lines up against you, you are going to get their best shot. Pat McAfee said the Bulldogs figure it out this week. “When you are at the top of the mountain, that’s when the work really starts,” he said. “The difficult thing is when you get comfortable in it. I think this Georgia football team, although they have tremendous talent and the ability to turn it on …, it feels like they have gotten caught in a lull or a bore. You are national champions. You have stars everywhere. You got new guys coming in. You’re playing Missouri. You play Kent State and kind of let them hang around. “This is a will Georgia bounce back and be the Georgia they can, and I believe they will. I honestly believe they have too much talent.” Mark Heim is a sports reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

Prosecutor: Mobile Woman Shot Teenage Son While He Was Sleeping – ABC17NEWS https://digitalalabamanews.com/prosecutor-mobile-woman-shot-teenage-son-while-he-was-sleeping-abc17news/ By Brendan Kirby Click here for updates on this story     MOBILE, Alabama (WALA) — Prosecutors said Thursday they believe a 13-year-old shooting victim was asleep in his bedroom when the mother fired her gun. The revelation came as a judge denied bond for the defendant, 53-year-old Glenda Marie Agee. Initially, Mobile police reported that Agee shot Ja’mil Autry in the back. But Mobile County Assistant District Attorney Lauren Walsh said investigators now believe the gunshot came from the front, striking him in the right chest. She said it occurred while the child was in bed in the home on Jones Lane in the Plateau community and that it appears he was asleep at the time. “We believe so,” she said outside the courtroom. “We haven’t confirmed that, but the evidence indicates that he would have been sleeping at the time.” Agee faces one count of reckless murder. Although it carries the same penalty as intentional murder, Walsh said the distinction is that it does not require prosecutors to prove that the defendant was trying to kill the boy. “So the standard is extreme indifference to human life,” she said. “And this is an ongoing investigation, so I don’t want to say too much about it at this time. But we have uncovered some information about this defendant’s pattern and practice of how she uses firearms, and given that information, we find this to be reckless murder.” That aligns with what neighbors have told FOX10 News about hearing frequent gunfire form the house. Citing a previous pending criminal case, a judge Thursday denied bail for the woman accused of fatally shooting her 13-year-old son. Agee has a long arrest history dating to the 1990s. Mobile police have said they responded to her address 34 times in the past two years. Agee was on bond at the time of shooting from an incident that occurred on Jan. 2. Prosecutors allege that she led Prichard police on a chase that resulted in injuries to one of the officers. That prompted a second-degree assault charge, along with reckless endangerment. Mobile County Assistant District Attorney Jessica Catlett noted that prosecutors are seeking to revoke the defendant’s bond in that case based on the new arrest. “This being her own son, your honor, she has no value of life,” Catlett said. Agee will make her next court appearance on the murder charge on Tuesday, when she also is scheduled to respond to the prosecution’s request that her bond be revoked in assault case. On Wednesday, at a vigil for Ja’mil, family members said they believe the shooting was an accident. Walsh said police still have a lot of work to do, including piecing together the precise sequence of events leading up the shooting and trying to answer the biggest puzzle of all – how could a mother shoot her own son. “We’re still investigating all of that at this time,” she said. Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform. Read More…

Once Hopeful Iowa Democrats Running Uphill Vs. Sen. Grassley https://digitalalabamanews.com/once-hopeful-iowa-democrats-running-uphill-vs-sen-grassley-2/ WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — When Michael Franken won the Democratic nomination for the Senate in June, many in Iowa’s disillusioned party thought they landed on a candidate who could maybe — possibly — reverse their humbling slide in the state. After all, the retired Navy admiral won 76 of 99 counties, in every region of the state, notably conservative northern and western Iowa. His hesitancy during the primary campaign to back weapons bans and college loan forgiveness were signs he aimed to appeal to moderate Democrats and even some Republicans tired of incumbent Chuck Grassley after four decades in office. But those ambitions are beginning to fade as Election Day, Nov. 8, approaches. Franken’s quest to unseat the most senior Republican in the Senate has been wounded by allegations that the Democrat kissed a former campaign aide without permission. Franken’s campaign has denied the claim. He’s defied skeptics before, beating the better-known and better-funded former Rep. Abby Finkenauer in primary. Nonetheless, many Democrats acknowledge that a race always considered a long shot is at risk of slipping firmly out of reach. To Democrat Marcia Nichols, the former longtime political director for Iowa’s largest public employees union, the allegation, “whatever it is, it’s made it tougher now.” But she noted that Franken took on Finkenauer, “who was pretty popular, and beat her by a lot. I’m not writing him off.” The obstacles seemed distant during a recent campaign stop as Franken, in his standard Navy ball cap, urged hundreds of supporters on a warm early autumn afternoon in suburban Des Moines to rally Republicans who might want a change after 42 years of Grassley in the Senate. “Iowans wake up every day doing hard things,” Franken said. “That takes, in today’s environment, a lot of guts.” To win, Franken would have to have to share voters with Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, a devout social conservative and fervent Donald Trump supporter who is favored in her reelection campaign. He would have to defy a decadelong Republican ascendency in Iowa, made harder in an election year when majority Democrats in Congress are facing economic headwinds and tepid approval of Democratic President Joe Biden. Franken’s challenges are part of a broader reversal of fortunes for Democrats. A decade ago, Grassley and five-term progressive Democrat Tom Harkin were Iowa’s senators. Democrats held three of five U.S. House seats and a thin majority in the state Senate. Today, Rep. Cindy Axne of West Des Moines is Iowa’s lone Democrat in Congress and she is considered among the most vulnerable in her party this fall. The GOP hold on the statehouse is the party’s longest in more than six decades. Franken’s resounding primary victory offered a glimmer of a chance for Democrats. A month after the primary, Franken trailed Grassley by just 8 percentage points among likely voters in a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll. That pointed to a potentially closer race than Grassley has faced since he defeated Democratic Sen. John Culver in 1980. With no help from the Democrats’ national Senate campaign arm, Franken has raised a noteworthy $8.3 million this year, including $3.6 million in the third quarter. Grassley had reported raising $7.5 million through the end of July but had not released his total for July-September period. That report is due by Oct. 15. The majority job approval that Grassley had owned for roughly two decades of Des Moines Register polling has recently fallen: It has hovered in unfamiliar territory and was at 46% in the July poll. Also telling of the shift, 64% of likely voters said in a June 2021 Des Moines Register poll they did not want him to run again, given the choice of seeing someone else hold office or reelecting the senator for another term. The change in mood comes as Grassley, who entered the Senate as a Ronald Reagan-era fiscal conservative, has tried to adapt to the hyper-partisan politics of the Trump era. Facing pointed questions from voters last year about why he had declined to say Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Grassley parsed his language to obliquely suggest Biden is president as the result of the Electoral College vote count. About two-thirds of Republicans nationally said they do not think Biden was legitimately elected, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in July 2021. A year ago, Grassley beamed when Trump endorsed him at a Des Moines rally that drew 10,000 to the Iowa state fairgrounds, where the former president argued falsely that he had won the 2020 election. “I’m smart enough to accept that endorsement,” Grassley told the audience, noting Trump’s comfortable victory in Iowa in that race. Grassley has campaigned little in public. He has relied more on television advertising, much of it critical of Franken for comments he made about the direction of the state under Republican leadership. Grassley turned 89 last month and says he has no concerns about being able to finish another six-year term — he would be 95 at the end of an eighth term. “Absolutely not,” he said during a Wednesday news conference. He ticked through his daily schedule, which he said includes rising at 4 a.m., running 2 miles six days a week and arriving at his office by 6 a.m. “Unless God intervenes, I’m going to be in the Senate for six years,” he added. Franken has steered clear of Grassley’s age and instead has cast Grassley’s time in office as his chief liability. “We deserve better than a senator for life,” the Democrat said. Franken has characterized Grassley’s praise of the Supreme Court decision stripping women of their constitutional right to an abortion as out of step with Iowa, where polls show a majority of voters support keeping abortion legal. Franken, who supports enacting legislation making abortion a federal right, held a modest advantage with women likely voters in the July Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll. But the publication of a police report detailing the unwanted kiss with the former campaign staffer has prompted questions from some would-be Franken supporters. The campaign manager issued a public statement that the allegation in the report was untrue and the police called it unfounded. Elizabeth Sibers, a 22-year-old Iowa State University student from Waukee who attended Franken’s rally, said she would like him, at a minimum, to speak out against harassment. “It does trouble me. He needs to take the time to address it,” she said. Sibers remains open to voting for him and said she wants to “give Franken the chance to grow from this, and not just look past it.” Grassley said he does not plan to raise it as a campaign issue. But when Franken called him “anti-woman,” for supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Grassley replied quickly and curtly. “You’re in no position to lecture me about women,” he said. “You’re in no position to do that.” Download our apps today for all of our latest coverage. Get the latest news and weather delivered straight to your inbox. Copyright 2022 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 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Kanye West Admits It https://digitalalabamanews.com/kanye-west-admits-it/ Kanye West, 45, sat down with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and opened up about how he feels when people think he’s ‘crazy’ after a wave of backlash he has received for wearing a White Lives Matter T-shirt Kanye West claims he was ‘bullied’ for supporting Trump Kanye West explained how it ‘hurts’ his feelings when people think he’s ‘crazy’. The rapper, 45, is now known for his constant outbursts and rants on his social media page. Kanye recently took his anger out on Vogue fashion editor Gabriella Karefa Johnson when she criticised his Paris Fashion Week show, which had him don a ‘White Lives Matter’ shirt. After receiving backlash, he went on to reignite his feud with the Kardashian family. He recently sat down with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight and talked about how he feels about the ‘crazy’ comments. “They keep on using the ‘Oh he’s crazy, he’s crazy’ thing. And it hurts my feelings when people say that,” Ye said. “It hurts my feelings that people can ask, ‘Hey, are you okay?'” Kanye doesn’t like it when people think he’s ‘crazy’ ( Image: Fox News) During the same interview, he talked about the criticism he received for supporting Donald Trump when he was president. The rapper said that due to receiving so much backlash he was left feeling like he wasn’t able to talk about it anymore. The dad-of-four said it ‘drove him crazy’ to not be able to talk about the controversial businessman turned president. He was also surprised at the criticism he received due to his celebrity status. Kanye told Tucker it ‘drove me crazy not to be able to say I liked Trump’. He then talked about what the point was of working so hard to become so well known and famous if he couldn’t voice his own opinions. Kanye said he respects Russell Brand and Candace Owens for speaking their minds no matter what backlash they got. He has been receiving a lot of backlash in recent days ( Image: Corbis via Getty Images) He wore a White Lives Matter at his show in Paris ( Image: Candace Williams/Instagram) Get all the biggest showbiz news straight into your inbox. Sign up for the free Mirror Showbiz newsletter. Earlier this week, Kanye was under fire for the ‘White Lives Matter’ top – which Candace Owens also wore – at the surprise Yeezy show. On the back of the shirt ‘White Lives Matter’ was written in bold white letters, which was a response to the Black Lives Matter moment. The Anti-Defamation League has previously called the phrase ‘White Lives Matter’ a hate slogan. People were outraged by his show, with Gabriella saying: “It didn’t land and it was deeply offensive, violent, and dangerous.” Fans also took to social media to call him out on the offensive T-shirts. Do you have a story to sell? Get in touch with us at webcelebs@mirror.co.uk or call us direct at 0207 29 33033. Read More Read More Read More Read More Read More Read More…

Analysis | Will Old Rules Of Politics Apply To Herschel Walker? They Did 2 Years Ago To A N.C. Democrat https://digitalalabamanews.com/analysis-will-old-rules-of-politics-apply-to-herschel-walker-they-did-2-years-ago-to-a-n-c-democrat/ A candidate running in a critical Southern battleground state got caught in a personal scandal that threatened to upend his campaign just a few weeks before Election Day. His supporters dug in, saying voters viewed the campaign as a parliamentary type of race to determine the Senate majority and predicted that the personal foibles would have no impact. Herschel Walker this month in Georgia? No, Cal Cunningham, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in North Carolina two years ago. In the fall of 2020, Cunningham emerged with a clear lead over Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), in part because of his biography as an Army prosecutor who served in Iraq. But in early October, he acknowledged that he had sent sexually explicit messages to a woman who was not his wife, and, a few days later, she told the media that they had an intimate affair. Cunningham, a married father of two, refused to answer questions about whether he had had other affairs. In 25 public polls after the revelations and before Election Day, Cunningham led in 22 and was tied in two others. But his campaign had collapsed. Cunningham lost by nearly two percentage points, falling considerably short of the vote tallies of Democrats Joe Biden in the presidential race and Roy Cooper in the gubernatorial race in the Tar Heel State. “It’s a self-inflicted wound,” said J. Michael Bitzer, an expert in state politics and a professor at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C. “You’ve thrown a monkey wrench into your campaign.” Cunningham’s fate is, by no means, a definitive prologue about what will happen to Walker, the former football star who faces allegations of paying a woman to abort his child in 2009, after he said he became a born-again Christian who was opposed to abortion rights. Walker has been locked in an extremely close race against Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.), one of the most critical contests for determining the Senate majority. The abortion story broke on Oct. 3, two years and a day after Cunningham’s affair allegations. Walker, a first-time candidate, has denied the assertions but has looked unsteady in several media appearances trying to explain his past. He has taken a familiar path of accusing Democrats of trying to distract voters from real policy. “They can keep coming at me like that, and they’re doing it because they want to distract people,” he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday. The woman has since accused Walker of encouraging her to have a second abortion a couple of years later, but she said she refused and gave birth to their now 10-year-old son. Cunningham took the same approach in his first media appearance after hunkering down for a few days. “People are tired of hearing about personal issues. They want somebody focused on them,” he told reporters. Cunningham had offered an apology to his family in a statement but then demanded “that my family’s privacy be respected” and said the affair was not an issue. In that regard, Cunningham and Walker followed a page from the Donald Trump playbook: Barrel ahead when scandal happens, don’t focus on the issue, and accuse your opponents of worse. It worked in 2016. Although GOP officials in Georgia and Washington remain strongly behind the Heisman Trophy winner, some unaffiliated Republican strategists in the Peach State find themselves miffed by how Walker cruised through the primary with the blessing of Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “He gets propelled into this Senate race without ever having been vetted,” said Jay Morgan, who worked in Georgia politics for the late Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) and advised former governor Nathan Deal. Walker has been forced to acknowledge fathering several children out of wedlock and has discussed violent acts toward his first wife, prompting concern that some moderate Republicans and right-leaning independents will happily vote for Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and then take a pass on Walker. “I think it’s more a case of who’s going to vacate that race — who is going to vote for Kemp and then skip over the Senate race,” Morgan said. That is precisely what happened to Cunningham two years ago. Which is its own irony, because for months before, both parties’ strategists had thought that Tillis, who had a rocky relationship with Trump, would lag too far behind his party’s presidential nominee as MAGA voters abandoned him. Tillis fell 93,000 votes shy of Trump’s totals in the state, and he even fell about 20,000 votes behind Biden’s losing performance in North Carolina. But Cunningham fell 115,000 votes shy of Biden — and 265,000 votes off Cooper’s victorious vote tally in the governor’s race. The stench factor was big in the Senate race that year. Almost 50,000 voters who cast their ballots in the presidential race declined to vote in the Senate race. And almost 240,000 voters chose one of the two fringe candidates in the Senate race, triple the number who voted for a third-party alternative in the presidential contest. The Cunningham allegations landed at the worst possible moment, just two weeks before early voting started; anyone who had their doubts had enough time to rethink their vote. “That is when everyone is paying attention,” Bitzer said. His post-election analysis showed Cunningham took the biggest hit in cities and urban areas, lagging Biden there by 65,000 votes, and by 27,000 votes in the state’s competitive suburbs. Those results suggest that core Democrats, many of whom did not have deep ties to Cunningham, abandoned him. Of the 12 candidates to win statewide races in North Carolina two years ago, Tillis received the fewest votes. Cunningham now practices law in Raleigh, with just a single sentence mentioning the 2020 campaign in a more than 800-word biographical section of his website. In Georgia, establishment Republicans do not expect core conservatives to abandon Walker, despite the inherent contradiction of their strong antiabortion beliefs and the possibility that Walker, 60, paid for a girlfriend to have the procedure. Cole Muzio, the president of a Christian conservative organization outside Atlanta, sent his supporters a memo Thursday that highlighted, in bold font, that “much about Herschel Walker’s past is extremely problematic” and that the candidate so far had “oscillated between political answers” on the topic. But the other choice was another Warnock term, Muzio told his fellow Christians, highlighting this portion in bold. “Policies voted for and supported by Raphael G. Warnock harms my neighbor’s family, their business, and their right to worship freely.” Some Republicans privately are hoping that Walker gets a pass for being a celebrity, so that his past behavior is taken as akin to Trump’s pre-White House days in Manhattan, especially after a video of him making crass comments about assaulting women came out shortly before the 2016 election that he still won. But others fear that public polls had already shown Walker consistently trailing Kemp’s position, and these latest stories, on top of the initial stories about his personal life, could further drive Republican-leaning voters away from the former football star. “I think they’re scratching their heads about what to do,” Morgan said. Georgia also is home to millions of new voters — 1.6 million in just the past four years — many of whom have no allegiance to Walker’s heyday 40 years ago when he was a star athlete at the University of Georgia. Georgia election law requires someone to clear 50 percent in the election or else head to a December runoff involving the top two finishers. Strategists already thought that was a distinct possibility in the very close race. Now, campaign managers and consultants will have to try to monitor whether support is shifting to a libertarian candidate, who could draw those alienated Republicans, or if those voters will just skip the Senate race on the ballot. Bitzer said he could not predict how the Walker scandals will play out this fall, but he said that without question, some of the old rules still did apply to Cunningham. “He would have had a better chance had he kept his drawers zipped,” he said. Read More…

Here's Who Is Not Eligible For Biden's Marijuana Pardon | CNN Politics https://digitalalabamanews.com/heres-who-is-not-eligible-for-bidens-marijuana-pardon-cnn-politics/ CNN  —  President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that he’s pardoning individuals charged with simple marijuana possession on a federal level, but his decision does not affect broad groups of Americans and non-citizens charged with the crime. There’s historical precedent for mass application of the presidential pardon power, but the sheer size of Biden’s pardon list stands out among most recent predecessors. The White House estimates “6,500 people with prior federal convictions” and “thousands of such convictions under (Washington, DC) law could benefit from this relief.” While Biden is issuing pardons for federal charges of simple marijuana possession, his move on Thursday did not decriminalize the drug and it remains a federal crime to possess small amounts of marijuana on federal land. Biden did announce an expedited review of how marijuana is scheduled under federal law – a move that could change how the drug is regulated in the United States and could help guide criminal laws. In a video announcing his executive actions, Biden said that “no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana.” “It’s legal in many states, and criminal records for marijuana possession have led to needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities,” he continued. “And that’s before you address the racial disparities around who suffers the consequences. While White and Black and Brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and Brown people are arrested, prosecuted and convicted at disproportionate rates.” But despite those words, there is still a broad set people who will not see immediate relief from Biden’s recent actions – some who he could have pardoned and some who he doesn’t have the power to pardon. Among those who Biden does not have power to pardon are thousands of individuals who have faced state charges for simple marijuana possession. While Americans’ attitudes about marijuana consumption are changing – smoking weed is becoming more popular than smoking tobacco, and 19 states, two US territories, and DC have legalized small amounts of marijuana – there are still laws in most states that criminalize possessing small amounts of marijuana. The full scope of individuals who could be pardoned as a result of state clemency for simple marijuana possession is unclear, but available law enforcement data analyzed by the American Civil Liberties Union found that in 2018, for example, there were almost 700,000 marijuana arrests, which accounted for more than 43% of all reported drug arrests. Not all drug arrests, however, lead to charges nor are they all categorized as simple marijuana possession. The President’s presidential pardon power is limited to federal criminal cases and does not extend to state criminal charges. As part of his moves Thursday, Biden called on governors to issue similar pardons to those with state marijuana offense convictions. Biden’s presidential proclamation states that his pardon “does not apply to individuals who were non-citizens not lawfully present in the United States at the time of their offense.” This suggests that undocumented immigrants will not be pardoned for existing federal charges for simple marijuana possession. But a senior administration official on Thursday noted that as a result of Biden’s proclamation, “anyone who has committed that offense could not be prosecuted federally, at this point, based on that conduct.” The official did not make a distinction between citizens and non-citizens. Data from the US Sentencing Commission indicates that during fiscal year 2021 some 72% of federal offenders in a case of marijuana possession were non-citizens. But it’s not clear how many non-citizens count as “lawfully” or “unlawfully” present in the country. Matt Cameron, a Boston-based immigration attorney who also teaches immigration policy at Northeastern University, told CNN that the decision to not include non-citizens who were not lawfully present could have dire consequences for some people. “If you’re in deportation proceedings or applying for a visa or applying green card, and you’re charged for possession, you will be denied. And you won’t be eligible for a waiver,” he said. He added, “You could be denied a green card and you would be denied for life.” The Department of Justice says that federal marijuana possession offenses that occur after October 6, 2022 – the date of the presidential proclamation – will not protect individuals from being charged down the road. “The proclamation pardons only those offenses occurring on or before October 6, 2022. It does not have any effect on marijuana possession offenses occurring after October 6, 2022,” DOJ says. However, the pardon does apply to pending federal simple marijuana possession charges, including those where conviction has not been obtained by October 6. In a statement about his presidential proclamation, Biden emphasized that “even as federal and state regulation of marijuana changes, important limitations on trafficking, marketing, and under-age sales should stay in place.” While Biden’s pardons will impact thousands who face simple possession charges, the act of clemency will not apply to all types of federal marijuana offenses. “Conspiracy, distribution, possession with intent to distribute, and other charges involving marijuana are not pardoned by the proclamation,” the Justice Department says. The DOJ also says the pardon does not apply to individuals who were convicted of possessing multiple different controlled substances in the same offense – including a charge related to possessing marijuana and another controlled substance in a single offense. “For example, if you were convicted of possessing marijuana and cocaine in a single offense, you do not qualify for pardon under the terms of President Biden’s proclamation,” the Justice Department explained. “If you were convicted of one count of simple possession of marijuana and a second count of possession of cocaine, President Biden’s proclamation applies only to the simple possession of marijuana count, not the possession of cocaine count.” The move also is not expected to remove any individuals from prison. The administration official speaking to reporters on Thursday said that “there are no individuals currently in federal prison solely for simple possession of marijuana.” Individuals seeking additional guidance regarding federal pardon eligibility and procedures should visit https://www.justice.gov/pardon for more information. Read More…

Former Brookside Chief Indicted On Charge Of Impersonating Officer https://digitalalabamanews.com/former-brookside-chief-indicted-on-charge-of-impersonating-officer/ A grand jury indicted Mike Jones, the former police chief in the troubled town of Brookside, on a felony charge of impersonating a peace officer during a traffic stop in Covington County. The charge is a Class C felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The grand jury also indicted Jones for speeding, according to court documents made public this week. Jones’ lawyer, William White II, said that prosecutors took the case to a grand jury before Jones got the chance to tell his side of the story in court. “That is their right,” White said in a statement to AL.com. “However, Mr. Jones has not yet been given the opportunity to present his side of the story and confront his accusers. He looks forward to that.” In April, a sheriff’s deputy stopped Jones for driving 78 mph in a 55 zone, court records state. The deputy reported that when he approached the car, Jones held a police badge out of the driver’s window, identifying him as Brookside’s chief. The deputy let him go with a professional courtesy verbal warning. Jones, however, resigned from the Brookside Police Department on Jan. 25, just six days after AL.com published an investigation that detailed how Brookside, a small town north of Birmingham, multiplied its police force and saw revenue from traffic stops soar in recent years. In May, the Covington County sheriff’s office got a warrant for his arrest after the traffic stop, and Jones turned himself in. Grand juries issue indictments when they decide that prosecutors have probable cause to believe someone committed a crime. Jones can plead guilty or not guilty at an arraignment set for Nov. 8. Read more: Inside the remarkable fall of Alabama’s most predatory police force During his time as Brookside’s chief, Jones increased the tiny town’s police presence exponentially. The town hired Jones as its only full-time police officer in 2018. By the summer of 2021, Jones said the department had hired eight additional full-time officers, along with several part-time officers. The new hires brought the force up to one officer per 144 residents in the town of less than 1,300. Under Jones’ leadership, total arrests in Brookside rose 1,109% between 2018-2020, AL.com reported. In 2020, the town received 49% of its revenue from fines and forfeitures, compared to only 10% in 2017. AL.com’s reporting also prompted several state investigations, as well as promises of change in Brookside’s policing policies, such as reduced patrol zones and clearly marked vehicles. A report commissioned by the town found racial disparities in which drivers received warnings rather than tickets during traffic stops. Henry Irby, Brookside’s new chief, said the department is making improvements, including hiring a police supervisor to provide implicit bias training for the department. Read more from our Banking on Crime series: If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

'Malicious And Targeted' Sabotage Halts Rail Traffic In Northern Germany https://digitalalabamanews.com/malicious-and-targeted-sabotage-halts-rail-traffic-in-northern-germany/ An ICE high-speed train arrives at the Hamburg-Altona train station, September 2, 2021. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer BERLIN, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Cables vital for the rail network were intentionally cut in two places causing a near three-hour halt to all rail traffic in northern Germany on Saturday morning, in what authorities called an act of sabotage without identifying who might be responsible. The federal police are investigating the incident, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said, adding the motive for it was unclear. The disruption raised alarm bells after NATO and the European Union last month stressed the need to protect critical infrastructure after what they called acts of sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com “It is clear that this was a targeted and malicious action,” Transport Minister Volker Wissing told a news conference. A security source said there were a variety of possible causes, ranging from cable theft – which is frequent – to a targeted attack. Omid Nouripour, leader of the Greens party, which is part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s federal coalition, said anyone who attacked the country’s critical infrastructure would receive a “decisive response”. “We will not be intimidated,” he wrote on Twitter. CHAOS BEFORE ELECTION DAY “Due to sabotage on cables that are indispensable for rail traffic, Deutsche Bahn had to stop rail traffic in the north this morning for nearly three hours,” the state rail operator said in a statement. Deutsche Bahn (DB) had earlier blamed the network disruption on a technical problem with radio communications. Spiegel magazine said the communications system was down at around 6:40 a.m. (0440 GMT). At 11:06 a.m, DB tweeted that traffic had been restored, but warned of continued train cancellations and delays. The disruption affected rail services through the states of Lower Saxony and Schlewsig-Holstein as well as the city states of Bremen and Hamburg, with a knock-on effect to international rail journeys to Denmark and the Netherlands. They came the day before a state election in Lower Saxony where Scholz’s Social Democrats are on track to retain power and the Greens are seen doubling their share of the vote, according to polls. Queues rapidly built up at mainline stations including Berlin and Hanover as departure boards showed many services being delayed or canceled. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke and Christian Ruettger; Editing by David Holmes and Mark Potter Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Read More…

Trump Is A “classified Documents Terrorist,” Should Be Arrested: Kirschner https://digitalalabamanews.com/trump-is-a-classified-documents-terrorist-should-be-arrested-kirschner/ Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner on Friday called former President Donald Trump a “classified document terrorist” over allegedly mishandling top secret and other classified records—storing them in his Mar-a-Lago resort home in Florida. The Katie Phang Show host Katie Phang asked Kirschner whether he thinks an indictment could now come more quickly for Trump after recent reports said that the Department of Justice believes the former president is still holding on to more classified documents—which reportedly should have been turned over to the National Archives. “Katie, how could it not?,” the attorney, a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC News, responded. “The federal government, the National Archives negotiated with Donald Trump [and] I’m gonna call him what he has proven himself to be at this point, he’s a classified documents terrorist.” “Donald Trump, I’m going to call him what he has proven to be at this point. He is a classified documents terrorist.”@GlennKirschner2 reacts to reporting that the DOJ suspects Trump still has not returned all of the classified documents in his possession. pic.twitter.com/TCgnXYp8wR — The Katie Phang Show (@katiephangshow) October 7, 2022 “The government asked for them back; he refused to give it. The government subpoenaed them back; he refused to give them all back. The government got a search warrant and executed it at Mar -a-Lago and got a bunch more documents, and now the reporting is he is still unlawfully retaining and concealing additional documents,” Kirschner added. The legal analyst was referring to a New York Times article, which reported this week that Jay Bratt, who leads the department’s counterintelligence operations, recently told Trump’s attorneys that the department believed he didn’t return all the documents he was supposed to after leaving office. During his interview with Phang, Kirschner addressed Bratt, who he said was his former colleague, saying “if I could say just one thing to my friend and former colleague, Jay Bratt, it would be arrest the classified documents terrorist and put an end to our long national nightmare.” “The evidence is there tenfold. It’s time to… really step up and enforce the laws against Donald Trump the way they would be enforced against any other mere mortal,” Kirschner said. Former President Donald Trump speaks at a Save America Rally to support Republican candidates running for state and federal offices at the Covelli Center on September 17 in Youngstown, Ohio. Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner on Friday called Trump a “classified document terrorist” over allegedly mishandling classified documents and keeping them in his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images Meanwhile, Harvard law professor and legal scholar Laurence Tribe made similar remarks on Thursday, predicting that the DOJ looks as if it is moving towards possibly indicting Trump in connection to the classified documents probes. “This looks like a major step toward an indictment of Trump by DOJ for obstruction of justice,” Tribe tweeted, sharing the Times article. However, the Times report mentioned that no details were provided about the potential next steps that the justice department would take to retrieve any documents it thinks are still in Trump’s possession. The DOJ declined to comment on the matter when contacted by Newsweek. It is also not known whether the department has gathered new evidence that could potentially show that Trump still held on to classified materials even after the FBI search of his Florida home in August. Still, Bratt’s outreach caused a divide in Trump’s legal team on how to approach the Justice Department, with one side insisting on taking a more adversarial stance when dealing with the department, according to the Times. FBI agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence to retrieve White House classified documents after an approval from Attorney General Merrick Garland. That decision came following a tip received by law enforcement from an informant who knew the type of documents Trump kept and where he stored them. Documents recovered reportedly included sensitive information about “highly classified programs” and nuclear weapons. Authorities also found dozens of empty folders that were marked “classified.” Trump has denied any wrongdoing in handling the documents and said that he had already declassified them to be able to take them to his house. However, many legal analysts, including former Justice Department official Mary McCord, have said that he was not authorized to do so after leaving the White House. Newsweek reached out to Trump’s media office for comment. Read More…

He's Not Even Running – But US Midterms Could Make Or Break Donald Trump https://digitalalabamanews.com/hes-not-even-running-but-us-midterms-could-make-or-break-donald-trump/ Last Updated: October 08, 2022, 20:59 IST Washington Many of Trump’s primary endorsements have been seen as undermining more electable, mainstream alternatives. (Reuters File Image) Trump threw himself into the midterm election campaign with unprecedented gusto, staking his kingmaker reputation on a slew of controversial candidates in key primary races After losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump could have worked on his golf swing or produced another book by the pool at his south Florida beach club. Instead he threw himself into the midterm election campaign with unprecedented gusto, staking his kingmaker reputation on a slew of controversial candidates in key primary races. His US Senate picks in open races — mostly anti-abortion hardliners, backers of his election fraud conspiracy theories or out-of-towners with tenuous local ties — have been struggling however. And with exactly a month to go until Election Day, many Republicans are laying the blame at the gates of Mar-a-Lago. “Donald Trump is not on any ballot in 2022, but his political future is,” John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a recent blog post. Trump’s project to reshape the Republican Party in his image via the midterms will likely “either make Donald Trump an also-ran or the commanding force in party politics for years to come,” Hudak argued. Many of Trump’s primary endorsements have been seen as undermining more electable, mainstream alternatives, and potentially squandering easy victories in key battlegrounds seen as ripe for flipping from the Democrats. Among his controversial picks are celebrity physician Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania — seen by many as an out-of-touch “carpetbagger,” prone to rhetorical gaffes — and Ohio’s J.D. Vance, a venture capitalist who has spent most of his adult life in Silicon Valley and faces similar issues. The story is the same in Georgia, where ex-football star Herschel Walker faces questions over domestic abuse, dishonesty about his past and mental fitness. And in Arizona, Blake Masters is struggling in what should be a winnable seat with a campaign that Politico has described as “hardline nationalist.” ‘Little to gain’ Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who needs just one gain to take the upper chamber from the Democrats — has offered oblique hints that he sees “candidate quality” as a problem. Hudack put it more starkly. “(If) Senate candidates like Walker, Oz, Vance or Blake Masters ultimately lose in numbers that maintains Democrats’ Senate majority, Mr Trump will be widely blamed,” he said. A poor election night for Trump candidates would be chum in the water for his 2024 rivals, a list that potentially includes outspoken anti-Trumpist Liz Cheney, Florida’s firebrand governor Ron DeSantis and ex-vice president Mike Pence. Cheney aside, Republican presidential hopefuls have largely continued to genuflect to Trump through his post-presidency. But figures such as ex-secretary of state Mike Pompeo, estranged Trump ally Chris Christie and one-time UN ambassador Nikki Haley could be emboldened by poor results on November 8. David Greenberg, a media and history professor at Rutgers University, said the former president — for now the clear frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination — had “little to gain” in the midterms. “But Trump has a lot to lose because if his candidates flame out, then he will be seen as having lost his magic,” Greenberg told AFP. “Some primary voters in 2024 may think twice about supporting him again, especially if a popular alternative such as DeSantis also runs.” A note of caution: the polls are expected to tighten before November and all of Trump’s most divisive candidates could yet triumph in photo finishes. ‘Clear leader’ Expect some of the circling sharks to back off if this happens — and for Trump to look suddenly like a political genius with a bold vision rather than a liability. Trump watchers often point out that much of the former president’s die-hard base cares little about the Senate or Washington politics in any case. “Despite losing reelection, two impeachments, nearly a dozen serious criminal probes, and countless scandals that would have long ago sunk most any other politician, Trump remains the clear leader of the Republican Party,” said political analyst Nicholas Creel, of Georgia College and State University. “Trump’s support in the Republican Party is far too resilient to be damaged by a poor showing by the party this November.” Other observers though expect the tycoon’s many legal woes, including the mushrooming scandal over his mishandling of classified government secrets, to be as a big a drag on his political prospects as the performance of his midterm picks. Irina Tsukerman, a New York-based national security lawyer and geopolitical analyst, said Trump was increasingly perceived as a “political liability” — incapable of winning a future presidential election even against a weak Democrat. “Overall, it looks like he will be strongly discouraged from running in 2024, which he may not do for his own reasons — such as avoiding embarrassment and keeping the money he is currently raising,” she told AFP. Trump’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Read the Latest News and Breaking News here Read More…

The US Midterm Election For Dummies https://digitalalabamanews.com/the-us-midterm-election-for-dummies/ It is only two years since US President Joe Biden was swept to power in one of the most fraught elections Washington has witnessed, but all eyes are already on the next nationwide vote. Biden isn’t up for re-election until 2024, but candidates vying for positions large and small — from county commissioner or tribal chief to US senator — will be sweating the outcome of Election Day on November 8. As Democratic and Republican nominees duke it out in the final weeks of the campaign trail, here is a guide to what’s at stake. (FILES) In this file photo taken on January 4, 2021 Democratic candidate for Senate Raphael Warnock (L) and US President-elect Joe Biden (R) bump elbows on stage during a rally outside Center Parc Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. – The US midterm elections were once seen as a likely landslide victory for Republicans, as President Joe Biden’s approval ratings slumped amid spiraling inflation, record migrant arrivals and rising violent crime. With a month to go, Democrats are banking on a much closer contest amid a series of legislative wins, improving gas prices and the nomination of a slate of Trumpist candidates who have been struggling in winnable seats (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP) – What are the midterms? – US voters decide every two years who get the majority in both chambers of Congress — and whether the president will get any new policies passed or if the opposition will be able to frustrate the agenda. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are on the ballot, as well as 35 of the 100 Senate seats. Governors’ mansions are also up for grabs in 36 states, and there are elections for state-level lawmakers, secretaries of state and attorneys general. Those more local contests will affect state policies on a range of issues from abortion access to voting rights and Covid-19 restrictions. – The horse race – In a typical midterm, the party in the White House suffers double-digit losses in the House — 26 on average since World War II — and around four Senate seats as voters seek a check on the president’s power. For much of 2022 the traditional indicators were pointing to business as usual, with Biden’s approval rating hovering around 40 percent, the pandemic dragging into a third year, and inflation at a 40-year high. But Democrats have been emboldened by a summer sea-change in the political outlook, buoyed by a spate of legislative achievements, unpopular Republican curbs on abortion, and falling gas prices. Neutral analysts expect a modest gain for House Republicans of 10 to 20 seats — enough to win back control of the chamber but not enough for a commanding majority. The Senate remains a toss-up. Analysts see a continued 50-50 split as the most likely outcome, meaning Democrats would keep control with Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote. – Abortion and other campaign issues – Both parties acknowledge that reproductive rights have animated Democratic engagement like no other issue since the Supreme Court’s June withdrawal of the federally guaranteed right to abortion. Some Republicans have floated plans to consider a nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy should they retake Congress. This is despite 85 percent of Americans believing abortion should be legal in all or some circumstances, according to a long-running survey by Gallup. The issue’s salience has diminished since the summer, though, and it now trails behind inflation, crime, and immigration among voters’ stated priorities. Economic issues are also a bigger factor than concerns about voting rights and democracy, according to the latest Monmouth University Poll. Republicans are focusing on portraying Democrats as “soft on crime” in many of the tightest swing states, and are reminding voters of record immigration figures and stubbornly high inflation, despite a cooling in gas prices. Democrats are banking on getting credit for the White House finally clinching legislation boosting domestic manufacturing, tackling climate change, and lowering prescription drug prices. – The Trump factor – Like Biden, former president Donald Trump is not on the ballot but he remains a headache for Republicans — both for his mushrooming legal woes and his endorsements. The issue that has sucked much of the oxygen out of the room in the final months is the hoard of government secrets that were found at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in a search by the FBI. A civil investigation of his family’s finances, a criminal probe of his attempts to overturn his election defeat, and the barrage of misconduct allegations from the 2021 US Capitol insurrection hearings could discourage moderate Republicans from turning out. Meanwhile, Trump has inserted himself front and center in the election, making more than 200 endorsements, often of election conspiracy theorists and far-right candidates in swing states. Senior Republicans have privately bemoaned the quality of Trump-backed Senate candidates in several tight races. Read More…

Florida-Missouri Football 2022 Live Stream, Odds (10/8) https://digitalalabamanews.com/florida-missouri-football-2022-live-stream-odds-10-8/ Sports Published: Oct. 08, 2022, 7:30 a.m. Florida wide receiver Justin Shorter (4) celebrates with wide receiver Xzavier Henderson (3) in the end zone after Shorter scored on a 75-yard pass play during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Eastern Washington, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)AP The Florida Gators host the Missouri Tigers in SEC football 2022 action Saturday, October 8, at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Fla. The game will be live streamed via fubo TV. Florida is 3-2 overall, 0-2 in the SEC this season, while Missouri is 2-3, 0-2. The Tigers won the last meeting between the two teams, beating the Gators 24-23 in 2021 in Columbia, Mo. Florida is an 11-point favorite in the game, per Vegas Insider. The Florida vs. Missouri game starts at 11 a.m. Central (noon Eastern) and will be live streamed on fubo TV, which offers a 7-day free trial and is then $69.99 per month and live streamed on DirecTV Stream, which is available for $49.99 for the first two months, $69.99 after that. ESPNU will broadcast the game nationally. Preview WHAT’S AT STAKE? Either Missouri or Florida will get its first conference victory. The Tigers are coming off consecutive nail-biters against Auburn and No. 2 Georgia. They missed a short field goal at the end of regulation that would have beaten Auburn and squandered a 10-point lead in the final 10 minutes against Georgia. Missouri’s most recent league win came last November against the Gators, a 24-23 stunner in overtime that prompted Florida to fire coach Dan Mullen the following day. The Gators have dropped six straight in SEC play. KEY MATCHUP Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz vs. Florida’s Billy Napier. Drinkwitz is 2-0 against Napier, with both meetings coming in the Sun Belt Conference in 2019. Drinkwitz was coaching Appalachian State; Napier at Louisiana-Lafayette. Both head coaches also are offensive play-callers for their teams. PLAYERS TO WATCH Missouri: LB Ty’Ron Hopper, who transferred from Florida in January, has 32 tackles and ranks second in the SEC with 7 ½ tackles for loss. He trails only Alabama star Will Anderson. Hopper and his cousin, DL Tyrone Hopper, both landed at Missouri after entering the portal. Tyrone had been at North Carolina. Florida: QB Anthony Richardson has at least one turnover in four consecutive games. The dual-threat quarterback has flipped between fantastic and flawed from week to week and even series to series. He played sparingly last week against lower-division Eastern Washington and should have fresh legs against the Tigers. FACTS & FIGURES Missouri’s Harrison Mevis is the only kicker in the Football Bowl Subdivision with three field goals from beyond 50 yards. He’s hit from 52, 52 and 56. He’s tied for first nationally in attempts per game (2.6) and tied for third in makes per game (2.0). … Mizzou’s Dominic Lovett leads all SEC receivers in yards (460), yards per game (92.0) and total receptions (27). … Florida’s six-game skid in SEC play matches the program’s longest since losing 11 in a row between 1945-48. The Gators also dropped six straight in 1979 and between the 2017-18 seasons. … Florida has scored in 428 consecutive games, an NCAA-record streak that began in 1988. The Associated Press contributed to this report. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

Once Hopeful Iowa Democrats Running Uphill Vs. Sen. Grassley https://digitalalabamanews.com/once-hopeful-iowa-democrats-running-uphill-vs-sen-grassley/ WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – When Michael Franken won the Democratic nomination for the Senate in June, many in Iowa’s disillusioned party thought they landed on a candidate who could maybe — possibly — reverse their humbling slide in the state. After all, the retired Navy admiral won 76 of 99 counties, in every region of the state, notably conservative northern and western Iowa. His hesitancy during the primary campaign to back weapons bans and college loan forgiveness were signs he aimed to appeal to moderate Democrats and even some Republicans tired of incumbent Chuck Grassley after four decades in office. But those ambitions are beginning to fade as Election Day, Nov. 8, approaches. Franken’s quest to unseat the most senior Republican in the Senate has been wounded by allegations that the Democrat kissed a former campaign aide without permission. Franken’s campaign has denied the claim. He’s defied skeptics before, beating the better known and better funded former Rep. Abby Finkenauer in primary. Nonetheless, many Democrats acknowledge that a race always considered a long shot is at risk of slipping firmly out of reach. To Democrat Marcia Nichols, the former longtime political director for Iowa’s largest public employees union, the allegation, “whatever it is, it’s made it tougher now.” But she noted that Franken took on Finkenauer, “who was pretty popular, and beat her by a lot. I’m not writing him off.” The obstacles seemed distant during a recent campaign stop as Franken, in his standard Navy ball cap, urged hundreds of supporters on a warm early autumn afternoon in suburban Des Moines to rally Republicans who might want a change after 42 years of Grassley in the Senate. “Iowans wake up every day doing hard things,” Franken said. “That takes, in today’s environment, a lot of guts.” To win, Franken would have to have to share voters with Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, a devout social conservative and fervent Donald Trump supporter who is favored in her reelection campaign. He would have to defy a decadelong Republican ascendency in Iowa, made harder in an election year when majority Democrats in Congress are facing economic headwinds and tepid approval of Democratic President Joe Biden. Franken’s challenges are part of a broader reversal of fortunes for Democrats. A decade ago, Grassley and five-term progressive Democrat Tom Harkin were Iowa’s senators. Democrats held three of five U.S. House seats and a thin majority in the state Senate. Today, Rep. Cindy Axne of West Des Moines is Iowa’s lone Democrat in Congress and she is considered among the most vulnerable in her party this fall. The GOP hold on the statehouse is the party’s longest in more than six decades. Franken’s resounding primary victory offered a glimmer of a chance for Democrats. A month after the primary, Franken trailed Grassley by just 8 percentage points among likely voters in a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll. That pointed to a potentially closer race than Grassley has faced since he defeated Democratic Sen. John Culver in 1980. With no help from the Democrats’ national Senate campaign arm, Franken has raised a noteworthy $8.3 million this year, including $3.6 million in the third quarter. Grassley had reported raising $7.5 million through the end of July but had not released his total for July-September period. That report is due by Oct. 15. The majority job approval that Grassley had owned for roughly two decades of Des Moines Register polling has recently fallen: It has hovered in unfamiliar territory and was at 46% in the July poll. Also telling of the shift, 64% of likely voters said in a June 2021 Des Moines Register poll they did not want him to run again, given the choice of seeing someone else hold office or reelecting the senator for another term. The change in mood comes as Grassley, who entered the Senate as a Ronald Reagan-era fiscal conservative, has tried to adapt to the hyper-partisan politics of the Trump era. Facing pointed questions from voters last year about why he had declined to say Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Grassley parsed his language to obliquely suggest Biden is president as the result of the Electoral College vote count. About two-thirds of Republicans nationally said they do not think Biden was legitimately elected, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll in July 2021. A year ago, Grassley beamed when Trump endorsed him at a Des Moines rally that drew 10,000 to the Iowa state fairgrounds, where the former president argued falsely that he had won the 2020 election. “I’m smart enough to accept that endorsement,” Grassley told the audience, noting Trump’s comfortable victory in Iowa in that race. Grassley has campaigned little in public. He has relied more on television advertising, much of it critical of Franken for comments he made about the direction of the state under Republican leadership. Grassley turned 89 last month and says he has no concerns about being able to finish another six-year term — he would be 95 at the end of an eighth term. “Absolutely not,” he said during a Wednesday news conference. He ticked through his daily schedule, which he said includes rising at 4 a.m., running 2 miles six days a week and arriving at his office by 6 a.m. “Unless God intervenes, I’m going to be in the Senate for six years,” he added. Franken has steered clear of Grassley’s age and instead has cast Grassley’s time in office as his chief liability. “We deserve better than a senator for life,” the Democrat said. Franken has characterized Grassley’s praise of the Supreme Court decision stripping women of their constitutional right to an abortion as out of step with Iowa, where polls show a majority of voters support keeping abortion legal. Franken, who supports enacting legislation making abortion a federal right, held a modest advantage with women likely voters in the July Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll. But the publication of a police report detailing the unwanted kiss with the former campaign staffer has prompted questions from some would-be Franken supporters. The campaign manager issued a public statement that the allegation in the report was untrue and the police called it unfounded. Elizabeth Sibers, a 22-year-old Iowa State University student from Waukee who attended Franken’s rally, said she would like him, at a minimum, to speak out against harassment. “It does trouble me. He needs to take the time to address it,” she said. Sibers remains open to voting for him and said she wants to “give Franken the chance to grow from this, and not just look past it.” Grassley said he does not plan to raise it as a campaign issue. But when Franken called him “anti-woman,” for supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Grassley replied quickly and curtly. “You’re in no position to lecture me about women,” he said. “You’re in no position to do that.” ___ For more information on the midterm elections, go to: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Read More…

NEW HABERMAN SCOOP: Trump Told Aides He Would Trade Documents He Took To Mar-A-Lago For FBI’s Russia Files https://digitalalabamanews.com/new-haberman-scoop-trump-told-aides-he-would-trade-documents-he-took-to-mar-a-lago-for-fbis-russia-files/ L: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images R: Department of Justice New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman has dropped a new scoop: former President Donald Trump wanted to barter the documents he took to Mar-a-Lago for the FBI’s files on the Trump/Russia investigation. Haberman has been making the rounds to promote the release of her controversial but much-buzzed-about book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. But she has also found time to drop scoop after scoop about the Justice Department’s investigation of Trump for crimes involving the Espionage Act after thousands of documents — some bearing classified markings — were seized from his home in August. On Saturday, Haberman and Michael Schmidt dropped a new one, reporting that Trump effectively wanted to use the Mar-a-Lago documents as hostages — to procure other secret documents: Mr. Trump, still determined to show he had been wronged by the F.B.I. investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, was angry with the National Archives and Records Administration for its unwillingness to hand over a batch of sensitive documents that he thought proved his claims. In exchange for those documents, Mr. Trump told advisers, he would return to the National Archives the boxes of material he had taken to Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Trump’s aides never pursued the idea. But the episode is one in a series that demonstrates how Mr. Trump spent a year and a half deflecting, delaying and sometimes leading aides to dissemble when it came to demands from the National Archives and ultimately the Justice Department to return the material he had taken, interviews and documents show. Haberman highlighted some of her report’s findings on Twitter: NEW: Trump, seeking Russian investigation-related classified documents last fall from archives, proposed a deal to advisers: tell archives he would trade the Mar-a-Lago documents he had for them. @nytmike and me https://t.co/ZRTzQUBqDY — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 8, 2022 The “pattern was strikingly similar to how Mr. Trump confronted inquiries into his conduct while in office: entertain or promote outlandish ideas, eschew the advice of lawyers and mislead them, then push lawyers and aides to impede investigators.” https://t.co/nUmxtvJD09 — Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) October 8, 2022 “But archives officials made clear that even newspaper clippings and printouts of articles seen by Mr. Trump in office were considered presidential records.” https://t.co/UuFuPuttu5 — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 8, 2022 Haberman and Schmidt also provide a deep dive on Trumpworld’s handling of the document issue. Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com Read More…

He's Not Even Running — But US Midterms Could Make Or Break Trump https://digitalalabamanews.com/hes-not-even-running-but-us-midterms-could-make-or-break-trump/ After losing the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump could have worked on his golf swing or produced another book by the pool at his south Florida beach club. Instead he threw himself into the midterm election campaign with unprecedented gusto, staking his kingmaker reputation on a slew of controversial candidates in key primary races. His US Senate picks in open races — mostly anti-abortion hardliners, backers of his election fraud conspiracy theories or out-of-towners with tenuous local ties — have been struggling. And with exactly a month to go until Election Day, many Republicans are laying the blame at the gates of Mar-a-Lago. “Donald Trump is not on any ballot in 2022, but his political future is,” John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a recent blog post. Trump’s project to reshape the Republican Party in his image via the midterms will likely “either make Donald Trump an also-ran or the commanding force in party politics for years to come,” Hudak argued. Also Read | Donald Trump likely to announce 2024 presidential run in weeks Many of Trump’s primary endorsements have been seen as undermining more electable, mainstream alternatives, and potentially squandering easy victories in key battlegrounds seen as ripe for flipping from the Democrats. Among his controversial picks are celebrity physician Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania — seen by many as an out-of-touch “carpetbagger,” prone to rhetorical gaffes — and Ohio’s J D Vance, a venture capitalist who has spent most of his adult life in Silicon Valley and faces similar issues. The story is the same in Georgia, where ex-football star Herschel Walker faces questions over domestic abuse, dishonesty about his past and mental fitness. And in Arizona, Blake Masters is struggling in what should be a winnable seat with a campaign that Politico has described as “hardline nationalist.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who needs just one gain to take the upper chamber from the Democrats — has offered oblique hints that he sees “candidate quality” as a problem. Hudack put it more starkly. “(If) Senate candidates like Walker, Oz, Vance or Blake Masters ultimately lose in numbers that maintains Democrats’ Senate majority, Mr Trump will be widely blamed,” he said. A poor election night for Trump candidates would be chum in the water for his 2024 rivals, a list that potentially includes outspoken anti-Trumpist Liz Cheney, Florida’s firebrand governor Ron DeSantis and ex-vice president Mike Pence. Cheney aside, Republican presidential hopefuls have largely continued to genuflect to Trump through his post-presidency. But figures such as ex-secretary of state Mike Pompeo, estranged Trump ally Chris Christie and one-time UN ambassador Nikki Haley could be emboldened by poor results on November 8. David Greenberg, a media and history professor at Rutgers University, said the former president — for now the clear frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination — had “little to gain” in the midterms. “But Trump has a lot to lose because if his candidates flame out, then he will be seen as having lost his magic,” Greenberg told AFP. “Some primary voters in 2024 may think twice about supporting him again, especially if a popular alternative such as DeSantis also runs.” A note of caution: the polls are expected to tighten before November and all of Trump’s most divisive candidates could yet triumph in photo finishes. Expect some of the circling sharks to back off if this happens — and for Trump to look suddenly like a political genius with a bold vision rather than a liability. Trump watchers often point out that much of the former president’s die-hard base cares little about the Senate or Washington politics in any case. “Despite losing re-election, two impeachments, nearly a dozen serious criminal probes, and countless scandals that would have long ago sunk most any other politician, Trump remains the clear leader of the Republican Party,” said political analyst Nicholas Creel, of Georgia College and State University. “Trump’s support in the Republican Party is far too resilient to be damaged by a poor showing by the party this November.” Other observers though expect the tycoon’s many legal woes, including the mushrooming scandal over his mishandling of classified government secrets, to be as a big a drag on his political prospects as the performance of his midterm picks. Irina Tsukerman, a New York-based national security lawyer and geopolitical analyst, said Trump was increasingly perceived as a “political liability” — incapable of winning a future presidential election even against a weak Democrat. “Overall, it looks like he will be strongly discouraged from running in 2024, which he may not do for his own reasons — such as avoiding embarrassment and keeping the money he is currently raising,” she told AFP. Trump’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Read More…

Explosion Hits Crimean Bridge, Damaging Russian Supply Route To Ukraine https://digitalalabamanews.com/explosion-hits-crimean-bridge-damaging-russian-supply-route-to-ukraine/ KYIV, Ukraine — A giant explosion ripped across the Crimean Bridge, a strategic link between mainland Russia and Crimea, in what appeared to be a stunning blow early Saturday morning to a symbol of President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions to control Ukraine. The damage to the bridge, which provided a road and rail connection between Russia and the Ukrainian peninsula the Kremlin illegally annexed in 2014, is another serious setback to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, disrupting a crucial supply route. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged that the government had no timeline for repairing the 12-mile bridge. Russia’s Investigative Committee, a top law enforcement body, said a truck explosion had ignited fuel tankers as a freight train crossed the bridge. The cause of the truck blast was not immediately clear. After the explosion, thick plumes of smoke and flames could be seen from a distance. Putin in 2018 personally opened the $4 billion bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge because it spans the Kerch Strait between the Black and Azov seas. The commissioning of the bridge was intended to symbolize Russia’s ownership of Crimea. Russia’s invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 turned out to be a precursor to the invasion Putin launched this year, in which the peninsula has been used as a major base of operations for Russian forces. Russia has claimed to have annexed four other Ukrainian regions. The blast was celebrated in Kyiv, where government officials hailed it and posted images on social media of collapsed concrete spans of the bridge and footage of the apparent moment of the blast, showing vehicles driving across the bridge just seconds before a giant fireball consumed the area. Mykhailo Podoloyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky called it “the beginning.” “Everything illegal must be destroyed,” Podolyak added on Twitter. The Ukrainian government provided no immediate official statement on the cause of the blast. But in a taunt, the government’s official Twitter account posted: “sick burn.” A Ukrainian government official told The Washington Post on Saturday that Ukrainian special services were behind the bridge attack. The Ukrainska Pravda news site first reported the government’s purported role, citing an unidentified law enforcement official who said Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, was involved. Ukraine previously has mounted daring attacks deep in Russian-held territory, including on an air base in Crimea and on military targets across the border in Russia’s Belgorod region. But if the bridge explosion is confirmed to have been planned, it would be the most stunning strike yet by Ukraine, which has been under invasion since late February by Russia’s far larger and better-equipped military. Russian authorities said the blast occurred around 6 a.m. local time. A video posted by government newspaper Izvestia appeared to show it at 6:03 a.m. Initial information suggested three people had been killed, including the driver of the truck that appeared to explode and two people whose bodies were recovered from the water, the Investigative Committee said. The Investigative Committee said the truck’s driver had been identified as a resident of the Krasnodar region of Russia. “The investigation has begun at his place of residence,” it said. “The route of the truck and the relevant documentation is being studied.” Russian officials have long warned of severe retaliation for strikes on Russian territory. The explosion injects a new element of tension into the war at a time when Putin and those around him have repeatedly warned that Russia could use nuclear weapons. President Biden warned this week of possible nuclear “Armageddon,” reflecting heightened alarm in the United States, which has the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal after Russia’s. Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, tweeted a picture of the damaged bridge and said: “@Crimea, long time no see” along with a heart emoji. And the head of Ukraine’s postal service said the agency would issue a new stamp showing a damaged bridge reading: “Crimean Bridge — Done.” Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, addressed the spate of memes and mocking social media posts from Ukraine. “The Kyiv regime’s reaction to the destruction of civilian infrastructure demonstrates its terrorist nature,” Zakharova posted on Telegram. Throughout the war, Russia has repeatedly bombed Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, including railroad stations, residential housing blocks, hospitals, schools and theaters. Leonid Slutsky, a lawmaker in the Russian Duma, said reprisal was “unavoidable” if Ukrainian responsibility was confirmed. “The answer must be harsh, but not necessarily head-on,” he said. “Russia has extensive experience in combating terrorists, and those who use their methods should also understand this very well.” Peskov said that Putin had been briefed by ministers and government authorities about the “emergency” on the bridge and had ordered the establishment of an investigative commission including Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, officials in Crimea, and the FSB, Russia’s security service. The commission has been directed “to find out the reasons behind the accident and eliminate consequences as soon as possible,” Peskov said, according to Interfax, the Russian news agency. The Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal case regarding the incident and had sent forensic experts to the scene. The bridge is the only direct road and rail connection to Crimea from mainland Russia. The crippling of such a key artery will affect Russia’s ability to reinforce and resupply its troops as Ukraine presses a counteroffensive to reclaim occupied territory in the southern Kherson region. In recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have accelerated their advance into towns and villages seized by Russia, in the northeast Kharkiv region, and Donetsk to the east, and in Kherson to the south. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Russian forces would receive “continuous support” in areas north of Crimea. “The Russian group of troops involved in the special military operation in the Nikolaev-Kryvorozhsk and Zaporozhsk operational directions are continuously supplied in full by land corridor and partially by sea transport,” the defense ministry said, according to Ria Novosti, a state-controlled news agency. The extent of the damage to the bridge, and whether any of it would remain passable to vehicles, was not immediately clear. Peskov told Ria Novosti there were “no forecasts on the timing of the reconstruction” of affected areas. While Russian Railways canceled all passenger service to and from Crimea and said that tickets would be refunded without charge, the Transport Ministry later said train service was expected to resume by Saturday evening. Russian authorities immediately sought to head off fears that the explosion would cause shortages of fuel, food and other essentials in Crimea, noting that Russia’s military occupation had created Putin’s long-sought “land bridge” to Crimea. “A land corridor through the new regions has been established,” said Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the head of Crimea. Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhayev initially cited a rush to buy gasoline and announced a limit on grocery purchases of three kilograms, or three packs of products per person but later said the restrictions were lifted. Sergey Aksyonov, who heads the Crimea region, said reconstruction of the bridge would begin as soon as the investigation was completed. “There are no risks in this regard, as well as no reason for panic,” he said, according to Tass. “By our joint efforts we will overcome everything. There is no doubt about that.” Abbakumova reported from Riga, Latvia. Isabelle Khurshudyan and Kamila Hrabchuk in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, and Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv contributed to this report. War in Ukraine: What you need to know The latest: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees Friday to annex four occupied regions of Ukraine, following staged referendums that were widely denounced as illegal. Follow our live updates here. The response: The Biden administration on Friday announced a new round of sanctions on Russia, in response to the annexations, targeting government officials and family members, Russian and Belarusian military officials and defense procurement networks. President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Friday that Ukraine is applying for “accelerated ascension” into NATO, in an apparent answer to the annexations. In Russia: Putin declared a military mobilization on Sept. 21 to call up as many as 300,000 reservists in a dramatic bid to reverse setbacks in his war on Ukraine. The announcement led to an exodus of more than 180,000 people, mostly men who were subject to service, and renewed protests and other acts of defiance against the war. The fight: Ukraine mounted a successful counteroffensive that forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September, as troops fled cities and villages they had occupied since the early days of the war and abandoned large amounts of military equipment. Photos: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground from the beginning of the war — here’s some of their most powerful work. How you can help: Here are ways those in the U.S. can support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating. Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video. Read More…

A Broke Marching Band Parades On Capitol Hill To Practice. Magic Ensues. https://digitalalabamanews.com/a-broke-marching-band-parades-on-capitol-hill-to-practice-magic-ensues/ The mostly low-income kids in the Eastern High School Marching Band are beloved by the mostly affluent D.C. homeowners who witness their practices October 8, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT Eastern High School band director James Perry, right, gives direction to the students as they march through Capitol Hill neighborhood to prepare for homecoming and the 100th anniversary of the school. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) Rush hour traffic slammed to a halt as the high school band director walked backward into the busy Capitol Hill intersection, followed by a line of teens gripping trombones, trumpets, french horns and flutes. The thunk-thunk-thunk of bass drums reverberated in the damp October air. “Straight ahead, band, you got to be lookin’ straight ahead,” James Perry, director of the Eastern High School Marching Band, shouted at the students through his megaphone. “Hey, hey, hey, hey!” they chanted back. Eastern High’s homecoming and a celebration of the school’s 100th anniversary were just days away, and the 65-member band — known as “The Blue and White Marching Machine” — was practicing for a performance Saturday that would draw hundreds of Eastern students, parents and alumni. Now, they followed a familiar path, down A Street NE toward Lincoln Park, delighting neighbors and anyone else who stumbled upon them. Practically everyone pulled out their cellphone to record the band as it passed. With four students across, they took up the entire road. Eastern High School marching band practiced their performance ahead of their homecoming in Capitol Hill on Oct. 6. (Video: Lizzie Johnson/The Washington Post) People cheered and shouted encouragement from their front stoops, car windows and the small tables set up outside the local coffee shop, Wine & Butter. Children chased the teens down the block. Sometimes passing patrol cars would flick on their lights and block oncoming traffic so the students could safely pass. Only the dogs weren’t fans. They lunged at the ends of their leashes or cowered behind their owners, uncertain. But Perry, 41, who also works as an attendance counselor at Eastern, didn’t take it personally. He chalked it up to the drums. As the students high-stepped down the street, over wet leaves and under a sky of sagging rain clouds, the driver of a black Toyota Camry rolled down his window and peered out. A woman smoking a cigarette, blue handbag slung over one shoulder, stopped on the sidewalk, gawking. “Hey band?” Perry shouted. “What?” “Hey band?” “E-H-S!” they yelled. They passed million-dollar rowhouses decorated for Halloween, with pumpkins heaped on porch steps and ghosts of stiff gauze frozen on lawns. A toddler pressed against the front door of one home, his breath fogging the glass. Nearby, Katie Telligman, 42, put on a warm jacket and stepped outside her home to better hear the music. “This has been one of the greatest things we’ve discovered since moving to this street five years ago,” said Telligman, who works in communications and has lived on Capitol Hill since 2002. For a while, the pandemic had disrupted these impromptu parades. Now the neighborhood valued them even more. “We’ve watched some of the kids grow up,” Telligman said. “It’s so unique and brings joy to people’s lives. They don’t put this on the real estate listings for the street, but they should. Where else in D.C. can you find this?” ‘The Pride of Capitol Hill’ In Room W01, Perry aimed to give his students something they couldn’t always find elsewhere at Eastern High — a place to dream. Eastern’s 735 students, nearly all Black and most from poor families, face obstacles the affluent residents surrounding the school rarely do. Eastern has long struggled with low test scores, high absenteeism and constant teacher burnout. But in the band room, the teens felt like they had a chance to aspire for more. “The main thing is family and new opportunities,” explained Marckelle Hodge, 17, a senior trombonist. “It’s more than I would’ve had in other programs. I want to get good grades, go to college, and make it out of my neighborhood. I’m thinking Texas Southern.” Perry, who played alto saxophone in Norfolk State University’s band, knows that such a thing is possible. Recent graduates of Eastern’s program have received full-ride scholarships to Columbia, Florida A&M, Mississippi State and other universities — places he tries to take the students for band competitions to show them what’s possible. What isn’t covered by a student’s scholarship is augmented by care packages from their musical alma mater. The boxes from the band arrive stuffed with laundry detergent, socks and underwear, towels, deodorant and other college kid essentials. Many of Perry’s students “come from tough backgrounds and deal with a lot at home,” he said. For 15 years, he’s directed the program, which includes younger students from nearby middle schools that lack music programs. Perry raises money for the band program by charging booking fees for their performances in the community. It costs $750 — plus transportation — for an appearance from the drum line. The entire band costs $1,500. It takes about two performances to pay for a competition, he said, usually in the Washington region but sometimes as far away as Atlanta. The buses are the most expensive part. In 2019, Perry said he donated his own money to the band by selling his car so the teens could travel and afford new warm-up uniforms. He now walks to work, he said. The Capitol Hill Community Foundation also gave the band a $20,000 grant to repair and replace instruments and announced plans to raise $90,000 more. The band kids have always been scrappy. They used to play at Metro stations to raise money. They washed their threadbare uniforms at the laundromat because they couldn’t afford dry-cleaning, hand mending them as needed. But the band’s motto — “The Pride of Capitol Hill” — has proved true time after time. The community, Perry said, “has really just adopted them.” In 2008, when the band needed $3,000 for the bus ride to a performance in Ohio, neighbors raised the money. And in 2015, when the band needed another $4,000 to get to Virginia, the community stepped up again. The students practice three times a day, before, during and after school, usually finishing at 7 p.m. Perry often reminds them that their reputation as “the city’s premiere band” means everything. The band room reflects their success. The piano and lockers are topped with colorful trophies and other awards. They’ve performed in four NFL halftime shows, three presidential inauguration parades and the opening ceremony for the FIFA World Cup Games. When The Washington Post moved out of its old building in Northwest D.C., Eastern’s band marched through the newsroom. Anything but excellence, Perry tells the kids, is “bad for the brand.” When students talk over each other or fail to listen, he makes them do push-ups, calling it “character building.” He doesn’t tolerate misbehavior. “It’s Homecoming week!” Perry yelled into his megaphone Tuesday afternoon as they started practice. The students were clustered on the football field — hoods cinched around their faces to wield off the rain — preparing for their foray around Capitol Hill. “The performance is on Saturday, y’all,” he continued. “Do we give up? Or do we maintain our energy? Y’all understand?” “Yes sir!” they shouted back. Davon Richardson, a 15-year-old sophomore who plays the trumpet, peppered Perry with questions, eager to get going. He was in a thin shirt, despite the 53-degree weather, and jumped from foot to foot to stay warm. He liked parading through the neighborhood, he said. The residential streets they marched down reflected a different reality than their school — the homeowners were predominantly White — but the students loved it. “People cheering out their houses and listening to and enjoying us,” Richardson said. “I like hearing them yell.” “Yeah, it feels like I’m making people’s day,” added Tobias Johnson, 16, a junior who also plays the trumpet. “I see them smile, and it makes me so happy.” Their instruments might be old and their uniforms worn. Their section might be short two trumpets. But they knew they had an unparalleled capacity to spark joy. The strains of “Just Got Paid” by Johnny Kemp thundered down the street. It was one of the band’s favorites, along with “I Would Die For You” by Prince. The teens continued high-stepping — all knobby knees and twirling drumsticks — as they ventured deeper into the neighborhood. In house after house, heads popped out front doors. The music was the only lure that could prompt them outside on a drizzling afternoon. “Go band, go band!” yelled Adrianne Marsh, 44, a political consultant, who bobbed and swayed to the beat with her two young daughters. On the sidewalk, a blonde girl in a school backpack shimmied her shoulders. Her younger brother leaned back in their mother’s arms to see better. Just then, two girls in pink shoes darted past them, hand-in-hand, chasing after the band. One of them was Bahman Koosha’s 6-year-old daughter, Nikki Koosha, who said her favorite instrument is the drum because it makes her “feel happy.” “I like that the band is noisy,” she said. “Almost every other day, we come and watch,” said Koosha, 41, an engineer. “As soon as the kids hear them, we have to go out,” agreed Filip Medic, 42, a director at a nonprofit. He paused, watching as his 3-year-old, Tessa Medic, took off running again with Nikki. At the end of the block, the band paused. Perry blew into his whistle. The teens quieted, and he gave a few pointers over the megaphone. “My fingers are freezing,” a flutist whispered to her classmate. “They’re going to fall off.” A few moments later, they turned ...

Pasty’s Big Blitz: The Inside Story Of Warwickshire’s Great Escape https://digitalalabamanews.com/pastys-big-blitz-the-inside-story-of-warwickshires-great-escape/ It was dubbed the Great Escape, Warwickshire dodging relegation from Division One of the County Championship by a whisker on the final day of the season through Liam Norwell’s jaw-dropping nine-wicket blitz against Hampshire at Edgbaston. Norwell – nicknamed “Pasty” due to his Cornish roots – and club stalwart Oliver Hannon-Dalby sent down all but seven of the 43.5 overs in a herculean display of seam bowling. The former attacked, the latter shut down the other end and a meagre target of 139 runs was somehow defended. Over a round of coffees in leafy south Birmingham, and with a scorecard to hand, the pair sat down with the Observer to relive the tense nature of a heist that instead saw Yorkshire fall through the trap door with Gloucestershire. Ali Martin: It’s the start of the day, you’re 62 for two, just 23 runs ahead, and there are three sessions left. What was the chat? Oliver Hannon-Dalby: Weirdly, there was very little tension because our situation was so stark. The runs almost became secondary to needing two sessions to bowl them out. Whatever target we set Hampshire – 120, 180, 200 – it simply had to be enough. Liam Norwell: There was total clarity and we were determined not to be relegated champions. We’d stopped talking about last year’s title win earlier in the season … but there was definitely an element of that in there, too. OHD We’d also been chatting about the Strauss report during rain breaks on the first two days, and the fact that, if it passed, relegation would mean two years down minimum. And with talk of promotion via a one-off playoff, it struck us all if we go down it could take four or five years. A nightmare. OHD Dom Sibley’s 77 was a brilliant innings with wickets falling around him and Sam Hain, our top-scorer all season, hobbling around after a horrible hamstring tear. It was very cool he did that in his last knock as a Bear. I got left stranded, again. If I’d been able to start hooning it like we know I can [batting average 7.8, no half-centuries to date] we might have set them 200. LN Hmmm. The fact we left them 72 overs to chase it meant the draw was off the table – if it was 200, they might have taken the draw that would have guaranteed them second place and £145k more prize money. The stakes felt so high out there in the morning, though. I got a first-baller at the back end, trudged off, sat down in the dressing room, texted my wife and told her: “We’re done. We’re down.” OH What? Blimey, that was a quick turnaround then – I swear you came up to me and said: “Don’t worry, they got bowled for 90 last week [57, in fact], we can do this.” You were the one who had me believing!” LN Ha! After I’d watched my dismissal back and figured I’d got a good one, I perked up a bit. AM All out for 177, a target of 139 in 72 overs set, what was the sense as Hampshire’s fourth innings chase got under way? OHD Both of us had bowled 20-odd overs the day before and I remember the great Shane Warne once saying you need two sleeps to recover after a big bowl – and he was spot-on. I was still very sore. Our head coach, Mark Robinson, was brilliant before we went on. He came over and said: “Get your arousal levels right.” AM Sorry? OHD As in, don’t push too hard to get a wicket first over. It was spot-on. I got a solid maiden in, which calmed my nerves and maybe calmed the team. Leak a couple of boundaries early in a low chase and shoulders drop. And then yeah, my second over, nice ball, Felix Organ nicks it and then this guy stops me taking all 10. LN Ha! We’d have already been relegated if it wasn’t for Ollie, simple as that. Fifty-three poles at 23, fit for every match. No seamer bowled more overs in Division One. He was the difference. Warwickshire’s Olly Hannon-Dalby is congratulated by his team-mates after taking the wicket of Hampshire’s Felix Organ. Photograph: Tony Marsh/Cric Pix AM Still, taking nine-fer didn’t hurt, starting with Ian Holland, bowled shouldering arms to make it 14 for two … LN Taken in isolation, it’s not good leave – it hit the stumps pretty hard. But to be fair to him, the previous ball jagged away. That wicket was a product of signing for Warwickshire back in 2018 and working with bowling coach Graeme Welch. He simplified my game, stripped it back to two grips – an outswinger and a wobble seam – with my angle, it creates doubt for the batter. OHD That’s the thing with Pasty, you just can’t leave him. LN Alex Davies was constantly reminding their players of that from behind the stumps. He deserves a fair bit of credit for the final day, his language around our boys was unbelievably positive – that shouldn’t be underestimated. AM It didn’t take long for it to become 49 for four, Joe Weatherley lbw and then James Vince, their premier player, holing out to OHD at fine leg. LN The Vince wicket was the first time I thought: “We’re properly in this.” He’s an incredible player. But the new ball nibbled all summer and we knew if we could get into the middle order with it, they would panic. That shot maybe showed that a little. OHD It was one of those tricky catches – 20 yards to cover the ball swirling – but it went in nicely. Having seen the replay since, I’m not too happy with Pasty there … in the split second it goes up you can see him thinking: “Oh no, it’s Ollie under it.” AM It felt like every time a little partnership formed, you managed to break it. OHD We have a very good stats man, George McNeil, and he showed us Hampshire don’t score many runs down the ground at the Ageas, it’s more square of the wicket – ie, excellent cutters and pullers. So it was just get it full, get the stumps in play. The Vince wicket was a case of the hard ball skidding on, maybe. LN I used to have a token look at the analysis. But in the last two years I’ve really started to look closely at it and it has made a massive difference. A player like Ben Brown, I’d never played against him before but I knew he would look to move outside the line. His lbw was an awful piece of cricket. OHD Steady on! But to be fair, Pasty really did toy with him. LN Pause the replay on my release you can see leg stump – he’s so worried about the ball coming back into him. And he’s got Al Davies in his ear too. AM That Brown wicket made it 78 for five at tea … both teams halfway to what they needed, essentially. But you two are both racking up the overs by now, Liam with 11 overs, Ollie with 12. What did you do at the break? OHD I was really struggling physically, cramping up, the body was saying: “No, no, no … I don’t like this.” The horrific thing with cramp is that it needs food but it’s the last thing you want. I always tell people, try sweating your tits off on a treadmill for 20 minutes and then eating a piping hot lasagne. LN I had to fuel up but also stay in the moment, as if I was still out there. If I’d slumped in a chair I wouldn’t have got going again. AM Not long after Liam has taken two more, Nye Donald caught cover and Keith Barker bowled to make it 91 for seven … OHD Donald was a seriously good field placement from Will Rhodes. In fact he had an incredible match as skipper, with the first-innings declaration and then the nature of needing wickets with so few runs to play with. The Barker one is just a beauty and a great clip: you have Rob Yates taking an amazing catch at slip off the stumps and Pasty crashing a flying elbow into Dan Mousley’s snoz attempting a high five. LN I gave him a kiss on the head to say sorry. AM After that wicket, Liam, you asked Rhodes to take you off … LN Next over I flagged a bit, James Fuller hit a boundary or two and I said something like: “I’m done, it’s soft bowling, I’ll lose this game if I keep going. Take me off.” The reply came: “Don’t be fucking stupid,” and Sibley added: “You’re bowling until you break.” Next ball I beat the bat, they said: “See, that’s not soft – now crack on.” AM A partnership does form, though, Nick Gubbins and Fuller taking Hampshire to within 15 runs of the target. LN By this stage I was nearly in tears at fine leg, thinking we’d lost it. I was cramping up and mid-over Rhodes suggested a ball change, literally just to give me an extra 30 seconds rest. But suddenly it didn’t go through the gauge. I asked umpire Richard Kettleborough for a brand new one – he told me to F-off – but I could feel the replacement was hard. I felt fresh again. The ball came back a little bit, hit Gubbins in front … and it might have been a fortunate lbw decision. OHD The umpires had a very good game – exceptional – but at best that one was borderline on impact, even if it would have hit the stumps. LN We believed again. After that, I said to Fuller: “You don’t know how to play this, do you?” – I could sense he was panicking. And another one jagged back a long way to bowl him. Mohammad Abbas comes in, we see some great fielding to stop a single and then I hit him bang in front. I was just pleading. Kettleborough normally gives them quickly but he made it so dramatic. Then everything is a blur. And if it wasn’t given, it would have been four leg byes and probably defeat. OHD There were just so many sliding doors moments like that all match, singles stopped, Danny Briggs hitting his first ball for six etc. Five runs is nothing. The tension was incredible. Towards the end, I remember 12th man, Jake Lintott, bringing me a banana for the cramp and saying I looked close to tears. I told him: “It’s breaking my heart, mate.” To find out afterwards Liam was feeling the same, 150m away, was kind of cool in a way. LN It shows how much it means to us. We’re both guys who have joined the club from other counties but this is home. To be in a relegation battle was horrible. I arrived with two goals: win the title and one I haven’t quite ticked off yet, which is to be awarded t...

Oscar Isaac Set For Spotlight Panel As Major Teen Wolf Movie News Revealed https://digitalalabamanews.com/oscar-isaac-set-for-spotlight-panel-as-major-teen-wolf-movie-news-revealed/ Live Blog GEEK OUT Updated: 9:30 ET, Oct 8 2022 NEW York Comic Con has finally returned after years of being postponed due to the pandemic, and the event has all the exclusives. This year, fans at Comic Con will have the opportunity to see Guatemalan-born American actor Oscar Isaac in a spotlight panel on Sunday, as well as take part in photo ops and get autographs. Meanwhile, Sarah Michelle Gellar joined Paramount+’s Teen Wolf: The Movie and Wolf Pack’s cast and creative team on Friday night — when it was announced that the movie comes out on January 26, 2023. For those not in attendance at this year’s convention, the panels are available to live stream for free on Popverse. If you miss a panel, videos of the event are available with a paid Poperse membership or with the purchase of an NYCC digital ticket. Read our New York Comic Con live blog for the latest news and updates… Good Omens exclusive clip revealed Prime Video’s original series, Good Omens premiered a clip for the new season at Comic Con. Neil Gaiman, writer and showrunner along with executive producers Terry Pratchett, Douglas Mackinnon, and Rob Wilkins were all in attendance at the panel. Cast members Maggie Service, Sosanya, and Sepulveda also made appearances, according to Collider. The panelists revealed the second season will be available on Prime in the summer of 2023. What is the Artist Alley? The Artist Alley is located on the show floor of this year’s NYCC. Various artist’s from famous comic books, graphic novels, and other artwork will be in attendance to discuss their work with fans. Some artists in attendance this year are Adriano Di Benedetto who has worked on X-Men, Captain Marvel, and Batman. Spider-man artist Alex Saviuk will also be in attendance. The full list of artists and their booth numbers can be found on the official NYCC website. Fans are decked out in costumes Comic Con is famous for producing some of the best homemade costumes and this year is no exception. Fans came dressed head to toe in costumes of famous characters in movies and comic books. Attendees showed their enthusiasm for their favorite characters, including the IT clown Download the app Downloading the NYC Comic Con app will make your experience at the event smoother. You can download on iOS and Andriod. The app will give you access to the schedule, panels, guests, and so much more. Types of badges There are several types of badges for this year’s NYC Comic Con. The NYCC Fan Badge holders are single-day attendees, 4-day, VIP, kids, press, or pro ticket holders. Other badges include sidekick, exhibitor, artist alley, and guest. Activate your badge! Before attending the event, be sure to activate your NYC Comic Con badge. Activating your badge before attending will allow you to reserve your spot for panels and other events. You can also stay connected with your favorite creators and exhibitors, according to the event website. Face coverings required All attendees must wear an approved face covering at NYC Comic Con. The masks must be worn at all times while indoors, and the event has strict limitations on the types of face coverings allowed. The full list is available on the NYC Comic Con website. Where NYC Comic Con is located Fans can attend the event at the Javits Center, 429 11th Ave in NYC. Attendees who have badges should enter at the North or South Green Entrance. Go to the Blue Entrance if you are a VIP, need ADA accommodations, or need to pick up badges. When is NYC Comic Con? The multi-day event is taking place from Thursday, October 6, until Sunday, October 9. The show floor will be open today from 10am until 7pm. Panels will be underway from 10am until 10pm. Comic Con day two wraps up “Back at #NYCC and our scales are finally balanced,” NYCC tweeted. “That’s a wrap on Day 2, have a good knight, see you at dawn.” Chucky and friends at Comic Con The notorious killer doll Chucky also attended Comic Con on Friday. The fictional character tweeted: “Watch out #nycc, we’re 3x the trouble #chucky“ Mick Foley attends Comic Con Retired professional wrestler Mick Foley shared a “tension”-filled snap on social media on Friday. “TENSION IN THE AIR as two hardcore legends meet at ⁦@NY_Comic_Con⁩ The Doctor is IN THE HOUSE! ⁦@RealBrittBaker,” he tweeted. He was pictured smirking alongside professional wrestler Britt Baker. More A-listers to see this weekend Many stars are set to grace Comic Con this weekend, including, Oscar Isaac – one of the convention’s guests of honor, Isaac will be available for photos and autographs Saturday and Sunday Amita Suman – the Shadow & Bone star will be available for photo ops and autographs all weekend Brendan Fraser – the actor will be available for photos and autographs Saturday and Sunday Daniel Radcliffe – the actor will attend a panel on Sunday to discuss his new movie, WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story Diane Guerrero – the Doom Patrol actress, will attend panels on Saturday and Sunday Dominique Jackson – the Pose actress will be in the Pride Lounge on Saturday Drew Barrymore – the Halloween actress will attend a panel on Saturday To see a full list of all the featured guests this weekend, visit the New York Comic Con official website. Fans can expect to see A-listers all day The star-studded event honors many A-list stars who will make appearances throughout the weekend. Today fans can expect to see the following stars at the convention… Adam Christopher – the Star Wars writer will attend panels on Saturday Britt Baker – the elite wrestler will be available for photos and autographs all weekend Download the app Downloading the NYC Comic Con app will make your experience at the event smoother. You can download on iOS and Andriod. The app will give you access to the schedule, panels, guests, and so much more. Karate Kid at NYCC One 19-year-old named Leo Rotundo dressed up as Daniel LaRusso from the Karate Kid at Comic Con. “I was born in Staten Island, but now I live in Kentucky – I try to come back every year. “This is the first cosplay I made, I got a regular gi and sewed a patch on the back to match Daniel’s. “Other times I’ve just bought a costume but this time I wanted to put more work into it and I had a lot of fun doing it. “It was a simple process, which I think is good since it’s my first time making my own, but I’d like to try more intricate designs. “It’s more fun making the costume when you really love the character because it makes you want to put more effort into it.” Thrifty mom’s process To make the costumes, Lillybeth Gonzalez says she first decides which character she’s going to dress up as. “We like to think of which characters we like and who we’re inspired by,” she said. Then, they’ll find materials they already have on hand before thrifting other items. “We use a lot of clothes and fabric we already have or thrift it,” said her daughter, Lilly Chevere. “My mom also makes a lot of our costumes.” Duo does DC costumes only The mother-daughter duo picks a theme at each con they go to and this year, they’ve decided to exclusively go as DC characters. “It’s just one of the things we love. We get to play and do makeup,” said Gonzalez. “We get to meet a bunch of people who feel the same way.” Despite dressing as the same character, the family says they like to create their own spin on the costume. “It’s nice to do different takes on it. We can be connected but also each dress in a way that we feel comfortable.” Thrifty mom creates perfect costume Lillybeth Gonzalez, 47, has been going to cons with her daughter, Lilly Chevere, 25, since 2015 and the two even dress up. “It’s great family bonding time,” said Chevere told The U.S. Sun while attending the New York Comic Con. ”It really brings us closer as mother and daughter. The two were dressed up as Zatanna Zatara, a character from the DC Comics franchise. The character is special to Gonzalez, who said Zatanna was the first cosplay she ever did. “Zatanna is one of the most powerful DC superheroes that has yet to have her own movie,” she said. “It’s nice to embody a powerful character as well.” No physical guides New York Comic Con is reminding attendees to download the mobile app, as there are no physical show guides this year. The app can help you navigate the floor, find schedules, and receive updates. HMU on the NYCC Mobile App The app is your guide this year, as there aren’t any physical show guides! Download now and use it to navigate the show floor, find Photo Op and Autographing schedules, and get show updates and alerts: https://t.co/T2WcmIZxOO pic.twitter.com/ouWan47eWt — New York Comic Con (@NY_Comic_Con) October 6, 2022 Renowned artist died en route Visual artist Kim Jung Gi died on Monday while waiting to board his flight from Paris to NYC for Comic Con after he began experiencing severe chest pains. Jung Gi was scheduled to appear at this week’s convention, but he suffered an unexpected heart attack. “It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that we inform you of the sudden passing of Kim Jung Gi,” a post on the artist’s social media page reads. “After finishing his last schedule in Europe, Jung Gi went to the airport to fly to New York, where he experienced chest pains and was taken to a nearby hospital for surgery, but sadly passed away. “After having done so much for us, you can now put down your brushes. Thank you Jung Gi.” A look at the Nickelodeon booth The Nickelodeon booth is featuring several of its popular shows. There is signage displayed of the Transformers, Spongebob, as well as a look inside of Monster High. A view of the Nickelodeon Booth featuring Transformers: EarthSpark signageCredit: Getty Images – Getty A view of the Nickelodeon Booth...

Nick Saban Jimbo Fisher Feud Takes A Turn: Awkward Man Hug Alert https://digitalalabamanews.com/nick-saban-jimbo-fisher-feud-takes-a-turn-awkward-man-hug-alert/ It’s game day in Tuscaloosa. Alabama vs. Texas A&M. Nick Saban vs. Jimbo Fisher. Face to face. Live and in person. Both coaches say their feud is behind them. The Awkward Man Hug watch has officially begun. R E L A T E D: Paul Finebaum on Jimbo Fisher’s Nick Saban daddy issues: ‘We need to talk’ – al.com R E L A T E D: One day in May: The flash feud of Jimbo vs. Saban and what happened next – al.com R E L A T E D: Half-thunk coronavirus thoughts: No more awkward man hugs or bowling – al.com R E L A T E D: Video from Texas A&M’s famous trash-talking yell practice before Alabama game – al.com R E L A T E D: What you need to know about Alabama vs Texas A&M – al.com R E L A T E D: Nick Saban seems happiest at this moment before Alabama football games – al.com Read all the coverage here: Alabama Football True stories and stuff: How I met Dr. Seuss – al.com Robert Plant head-butted me. Thanks, David Coverdale – al.com I was ZZ Top’s drummer for a night and got kidnapped by groupies – al.com Check out more cartoons and stuff by JD Crowe Horns Down. Texas, don’t mess with Alabama’s Million Dollar Band – al.com Top 10 Alabama vs Auburn ‘Irony Bowl’ caption contest winners – al.com Voting Rights Act at stake as Supreme Court ponders its prey – al.com Dead man talking: ‘I survived Alabama execution attempt’ – al.com Bryan Harsin watch: War Eagle? Auburn’s battle cry should be ‘War Buzzard’ – al.com How Bruce Pearl can solve Auburn’s Bryan Harsin problem – al.com Welcome to Speed Trap, Alabama: Where small towns turn into ‘little monsters’ – al.com JD Crowe is the cartoonist for Alabama Media Group and AL.com. He won the RFK Human Rights Award for Editorial Cartoons in 2020. In 2018, he was awarded the Rex Babin Memorial Award for local and state cartoons by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Follow JD on Facebook, Twitter @Crowejam and Instagram @JDCrowepix. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Read More…

Inbox: It Needed To Happen…and Now It Finally Will https://digitalalabamanews.com/inbox-it-needed-to-happenand-now-it-finally-will/ Dar from Mansfield, TX Hello Guv’na! Why hello Dar! (Get it?) Top o’ the morning to all of you! Brandon from Pleasant Prairie, WI What is your view as you answer this? Enjoy the trip! It’s currently 5 a.m. back home. I’m in my hotel room with my window cracked open and I can hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers playing over at the Packers’ practice field. I am tired, really tired – like that kind of tired where you feel sort of nauseous – but we are ready to do the darn thing. Dave from Huntsville, AL How’s the weather, gov’ner? Eerily similar to Suamico, WI. It started raining right after we did Packers Preview, too. So, that was awesome. Paul from Hewitt, WI Mike and Wes, the photos of the Packer practice field in London reminded me of my high school practice field. Did you and the players get the same feel? The basics of football are simple: tackle, block, run, throw and catch. Enjoy the experience. It’s a beautiful practice field and setup. But I joked with Spoff before Packers Preview that it felt like we were doing the Q&A from Coleman (WI) High School. It was something straight out of Wisconsin’s Northwoods. 1 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 2 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 3 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 4 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 5 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 6 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 7 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 8 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 9 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 10 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 11 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 12 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 13 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 14 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 15 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 16 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 17 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 18 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 19 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 20 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 21 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 22 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 23 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 24 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 25 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 26 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 27 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 28 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 29 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 30 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 31 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 32 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 33 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 34 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 35 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 36 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 37 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 38 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 39 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 40 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 41 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 42 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 43 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 44 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 45 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 46 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 47 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 48 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 49 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 50 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 51 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 52 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 53 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 54 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 55 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 56 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 57 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 58 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 59 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 60 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 61 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 62 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 63 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 64 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 65 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 66 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 67 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 68 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 69 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 70 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 71 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 72 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 73 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 74 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 75 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com 76 / 76 Evan Siegle, packers.com Mark from West Des Moines, IA What is the key for the Packers to defeat the Giants? It’s pretty simple – protect the football and don’t let Saquon Barkley beat you. Oh, and get some sleep. Mark from Missoula, MT While Romeo Doubs‘ development is obviously good for the team, isn’t it also a good thing for Christian Watson? He gets to come off a limited training camp/preseason without any outside pressure for him to perform. Not to say that he couldn’t deal with that pressure, but it must be easier not having to, I imagine. A game will come where the defense forgets about Watson and has no answer for him. And suddenly there’s another thing to worry about when facing the Packers’ offense. Thanks to Doubs’ early impact, Randall Cobb‘s consistency and Allen Lazard‘s all-around capabilities, there’s less external pressure on Watson to walk in the door and be WR1 on Day 1. But internally, I don’t think Watson would be affected either way. He’s a confident young man with lofty goals for himself. As I’ve stated many times before, his talent and ability are so obvious to even a novice like me. Watson is a rare breed. Izzi from Raleigh, NC How ’bout we look at it this way: the preseason is over, and we finished 3-1. Now it’s time to play some real football. It’s no small feat to win three of your first four to start an NFL season. Only one team (Philadelphia) got through September unscathed. Kelly from Kimballton, IA Is it safe to assume the Giants will have the same difficulties with the overseas trip our Packers will? Will our size and speed at linebacker be enough to slow down Saquon Barkley? Are the Giants receivers a threat to our Packers secondary? Does anyone else picture “Toad in a Hole” similar to “Prairie Doggin'”? It’s not even just the trip overseas. The Giants are hurtin’. They have 14 players on their injury report right now. This is a difficult turnaround for even the healthiest NFL team. On paper, the Packers are the superior football team, but we all know this game ain’t played on paper. They must impose their will Sunday. Arleen from Antigo, WI Who is the Packers’ MVP on defense? It has to be Rashan Gary. He’s been one of the best defensive players in the entire league through the first month of the season, with 19 tackles and five sacks, including his strip sack and recovery of Brian Hoyer’s fumble last week. Everything is coming together for Gary…and it’s terrifying. David from Parkersburg, IA I saw some pictures on Friday and noticed No. 45 in several pictures. I was intrigued and had to look up his name. Eric Wilson looks jacked or is just the way the pictures make him look? Reminds me of what Travis Jervey looked like in the past. Have a great day. FYI, I was formally from Platteville, WI, grew up 30 minutes away in Fennimore, WI. I spoke with Wilson before we left on Friday. He mentioned how much he’s into nutrition, sleep, hydration, etc., and I believe him. Dude is chiseled from stone. We’ll see whether he plays Sunday but Wilson originally made Minnesota’s roster as an undrafted free agent five years ago because of his contributions on special teams. Lori from Heredia, Costa Rica Please pass along a friendly message to Ian in Kirkwhelpington that there are a good few Insiders named Lori, in addition to The Lori from Brookfield. So excited to watch the game this Sunday. Would love to see a successful Hail Mary by “12” on English soil but would settle for Aaron Rodgers showing his belt after a big play to the fans on that side of the pond. Rodgers isn’t just one of the greatest players in NFL history. He’s one of the league’s biggest superstars. It only makes sense for a living legend, who’s still at the peak of his powers, to play in London before it’s all said and done. It needed to happen…and now it finally will. David from Parkersburg, IA I watched Rodgers’ interview in London. Out of curiosity were there a lot of London reporters in attendance? Yes, there were rumblings from NFL people the Friday news conferences for LaFleur and Rodgers were two of the most well-attended during the international series. Kyle from Osceola, WI Have the Packers ever played against back-to-back QB3s? I’m sure it’s happened before, but my brain is too scrambled to delineate between No. 2 and No. 3 QBs right now. I do know the Packers played Nick Mullens (San Francisco) and Jake Luton (Jacksonville) in Weeks 8-9 in 2020. According to Spofford Stats & Info, Green Bay also jousted with backups in consecutive weeks in 2010 (San Francisco’s Troy Smith and Detroit’s Drew Stanton) and 2009 (Detroit’s Daunte Culpepper and Cleveland’s Derek Anderson). Woody from Kill Devil Hills, NC I was up until 2 a.m. listening (thanks to the website for the broadcast) from my son’s house in The Czech Republic. I’m headed to London for the next game. My question is about the pep rally – do we need to sign up, buy tickets, or just show up to partake of the festivities? Looking forward to meeting you. The good news is you do not need a ticket to go to a Packers Everywhere pep rally. Just show up, drink and be merry. The bad news is Spoff and I won’t be there. Based on where the team hotel is located, it wasn’t feasible for us to make it into London. Thankfully, you have John Anderson, Mark Murphy, Hall of Famer LeRoy Butler, and several other Packers alumni to keep you entertained. Steven from Ladysmith, WI What’s up with ESPN’s John Anderson doing Packers video? I asked him nicely. Nah, John is hosting the pep rallies and very graciously doing some video work for packers.com while we sleepwalk around the hotel. Tim from Rosario, Argentina Not only is it the Packers’ first game in London. I read that this will also be first matchup of winning teams in the London series (32nd game). I fancy a Packers win in this first matchup of winning teams in London. Cheers! I don’t disagree, but you cannot take the Giants lightly. They’re feisty. Shilo from Murrieta, CA Last week, we faced New England in Green Bay. This week, it’s New York in England. Next week it’...

Chris Wallace Says He Became ‘a Bit Bored’ Covering Politics https://digitalalabamanews.com/chris-wallace-says-he-became-a-bit-bored-covering-politics/ Veteran journalist Chris Wallace said he became “a bit bored” with politics after years of political coverage, leading him to his CNN show that incorporates different interests and guests from different backgrounds. Wallace said on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday that he was not bored during the Trump administration because it was always interesting, despite it being a “show.”  He said someone was responsible for monitoring tweets while he hosted “Fox News Sunday” because something would change between the time he arrived at the studio at 6 a.m. and when his show started at 9 a.m.  Wallace said he spent a lot of time in 2021 “slicing the salami thinner and thinner” about the “marginal” difference between different versions of policy proposals like President Biden’s Build Back Better plan, and it “became kind of a bore.”  Wallace left Fox News last year after hosting the network’s main Sunday morning news show for two decades. Wallace was first slated to host a show on CNN’s now-defunct streaming platform CNN+. However, after new ownership of the company was announced, CNN+ was shut down. “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?” now airs on both CNN and HBO. Maher responded that Biden and Build Back Better are boring, but the political process is “supposed to be a bore.”  “That’s why we elected him,” Maher said, referring to Biden. “Let’s get back to boring and normal.”  Wallace asserted that “boring is not good” as the host of a Sunday talk show. He added that he is “interested in a lot of stuff” and pointed to Maher having a mix of guests on “Real Time.” The lineup for Wallace’s show, which airs weekly on CNN Sunday nights, is set to feature a wide range of guests inside and outside of politics, including former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, former baseball player Alex Rodriguez and singer Shania Twain.  Read More…

Flynn, Gingrich Testimony Sought In Georgia Election Probe – The National Herald https://digitalalabamanews.com/flynn-gingrich-testimony-sought-in-georgia-election-probe-the-national-herald/ ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia prosecutor investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 election filed paperwork Friday seeking to compel testimony from a new batch of Trump allies, including former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed petitions in court seeking to have Gingrich and Flynn, as well as former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann and others, testify next month before a special grand jury that’s been seated to aid her investigation. They join a string of other high-profile Trump allies and advisers who have been called to testify in the probe. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney who’s been told he could face criminal charges in the probe, testified in August. Attorneys John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro have also appeared before the panel. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s attempt to fight his subpoena is pending in a federal appeals court. And paperwork has been filed seeking testimony from others, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Flynn didn’t immediately respond to email and phone messages seeking comment, and his lawyer also didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment. Gingrich referred questions to his attorney, who declined to comment. Herschmann could not immediately be reached. Willis has said she plans to take a monthlong break from public activity in the case leading up to the November midterm election, which is one month from Saturday. FILE – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks before former President Donald Trump at an America First Policy Institute agenda summit at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, July 26, 2022. The Georgia prosecutor investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 election filed paperwork Friday, Oct. 7, seeking to compel testimony from a new batch of Trump allies, including former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) Each of the petitions filed Friday seeks to have the potential witnesses appear in November after the election. But the process for securing testimony from out-of-state witnesses sometimes takes a while, so it appears Willis is putting the wheels in motion for activity to resume after her self-imposed pause. Compelling testimony from witnesses who don’t live in Georgia requires Willis to use a process that involves getting judges in the states where they live to order them to appear. The petitions she filed Friday are essentially precursors to subpoenas. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who’s overseeing the special grand jury, signed off on the petitions, certifying that each person whose testimony is sought is a “necessary and material” witness for the investigation. The petition for Gingrich’s testimony relies on “information made publicly available” by the U.S. House committee that’s investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. It says he was involved along with others associated with the Trump campaign in a plan to run television ads that “repeated and relied upon false claims about fraud in the 2020 election” and encouraged members of the public to contact state officials to push them to challenge and overturn the election results based on those claims. Gingrich was also involved in a plan to have Republican fake electors sign certificates falsely stating that Trump had won the state and that they were the state’s official electors even though Democrat Joe Biden had won, the petition says. The petition seeking Flynn’s testimony says he appeared in an interview on conservative cable news channel Newsmax and said Trump “could take military capabilities” and place them in swing states and “basically re-run an election in each of those states.” He also met with Trump, attorney Sidney Powell and others at the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, for a meeting that, according to news reports, “focused on topics including invoking martial law, seizing voting machines, and appointing Powell as special counsel to investigate the 2020 election,” Willis wrote. Willis in August filed a petition seeking testimony from Powell. Herschmann, who featured prominently in the House committee hearings on the Capitol attack, was a senior adviser to Trump from August 2020 through the end of his term and “was present for multiple meetings between former President Trump and others related to the 2020 election,” Willis wrote in the petition seeking his testimony. She wrote that the House committee also revealed that Herschmann had “multiple conversations” with Eastman, Giuliani, Powell “and others known to be associated with the Trump Campaign, related to their efforts to influence the results of the November 2020 elections in Georgia and elsewhere.” Specifically, he had a “heated conversation” with Eastman “concerning efforts in Georgia,” she added. Willis also filed petitions Friday to compel testimony from Jim Penrose and Stephen Cliffgard Lee. She identified Penrose as “a cyber investigations, operations and forensics consultant” who worked with Powell and others known to be associated with the Trump campaign in late 2020 and early 2021. He also communicated with Powell and others regarding an agreement to hire data solutions firm SullivanStrickler to copy data and software from voting system equipment in Coffee County, about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, as well as in Michigan and Nevada, Willis wrote. Penrose did not immediately respond to an email and phone message seeking comment. Willis wrote in a petition seeking Lee’s testimony that he was part of an effort to pressure elections worker Ruby Freeman, who was the subject of false claims about election fraud in Fulton County. He could not immediately be reached for comment. Special grand juries are impaneled in Georgia to investigate complex cases with large numbers of witnesses and potential logistical concerns. They can compel evidence and subpoena witnesses for questioning and, unlike regular grand juries, can also subpoena the target of an investigation to appear before it. When its investigation is complete, the special grand jury issues a final report and can recommend action. It’s then up to the district attorney to decide whether to ask a regular grand jury for an indictment. — By KATE BRUMBACK Associated Press Read More…

Facts And Fantasy Collide In Wisconsin’s Senate Debate – Wisconsin Examiner https://digitalalabamanews.com/facts-and-fantasy-collide-in-wisconsins-senate-debate-wisconsin-examiner/ The flurry of one-minute answers during Friday night’s U.S. Senate candidate debate are unlikely to change many voters’ minds. There was Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in his dark blue suit and white hair looking senatorial as he glibly explained that the government is wasting money on silly climate change initiatives and reassuring voters that, despite his many published comments to the contrary, he wants to “save” Social Security and Medicare. There was his Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, looking young and a little nervous in his open-collar shirt and no tie, saying that he doesn’t mind the recent barrage of attack ads calling him “different” since, as someone who grew up in a working class family, he would be a different kind of senator from millionaires like Johnson. Barnes came armed with a lot of facts, including Johnson’s description of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme,” his support for overturning Roe v. Wade, his praise of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, which, Barnes pointed out, runs counter to his posture as a big supporter of the police — as do his repeated votes against funding for local police departments. But somehow Johnson manages to let these factual attacks roll off. Part of his secret is that he seems totally at ease, whether he’s blaming climate change on sun spots or talking about the the COVID-19 vaccine killing people or, in Friday night’s debate, explaining that Roe v. Wade caused 40 years of controversy over abortion and now that it’s been overturned things will be more peaceful. The debate wasn’t a great forum for showcasing Barnes’ strengths. It went by too quickly, with too many facts stuffed into a short time slot. There was no time for rebuttal and no deeper discussion of the issues, which Barnes knows well. For people who already know that Johnson has praised the Jan. 6 rioters, voted repeatedly for a nationwide no-exceptions abortion ban and has said he wants Social Security to be subject to cuts every year as one of many discretionary spending measures, instead of being protected as an entitlement, it was satisfying to hear Barnes review the record. But that review was on fast forward in the quick debate format. Johnson, in his answers, seemed less pressed for time, in part because he didn’t have many facts to marshal. He just batted away the public record. On abortion he made his views sound reasonable: He’s for a referendum, so voters can decide under what circumstances they think abortion should be legal. A majority of Wisconsinites opposed overturning Roe v. Wade and, given the chance, would amend our state’s draconian 19th century abortion ban. But Johnson knows that there’s no danger the public will get the chance to weigh in, because the Republicans who control the Legislature refused to take up Evers’ call for a special session to create the very referendum process Johnson claims to favor. Likewise, Johnson said he sees no reason to pass a law recognizing same sex marriage, because “stare decisis is very powerful” and the U.S. Supreme Court that just overturned Roe v. Wade surely won’t overturn a more recent precedent recognizing same-sex couples. Say what? No matter how nonsensical, Johnson’s bland reassurances appear to have a lulling effect. Consider the recent poll showing that a majority of older Wisconsin voters rank protecting Social Security and Medicare as their highest priorities — and also plan to vote for Johnson. Asked about addressing mass shootings, Johnson assured debate viewers that “more gun control laws just won’t work.” He claimed, falsely, to have repeatedly condemned the Jan. 6 insurrection and said he didn’t know that those fake Trump ballots were in the package he tried to deliver to the vice president. And he pivoted from a question about the violent Capitol insurrection to Black Lives Matter protests, drawing a false equivalency between the pro-Trump rioters who attacked Capitol police officers as they sought to “hang Mike Pence” and the mostly peaceful protests of police shootings of Black people across the country in the summer of 2020. Most egregiously, Johnson repeated his discredited claim that Barnes “incited” a riot in Kenosha, when he held a press conference after the Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake. That accusation was a softer version of some of the ads that have been not so subtly displaying Barnes’ picture, with his skin darkened, alongside mugshots of criminals. Johnson’s ability to disconnect from reality, as when he denies public positions he has taken, leaves his opponents almost overwhelmed. Where do you even start? It’s hard to forget the debates of 2010 and 2016 in which Johnson faced Russ Feingold, a constitutional law scholar and one of the brightest lights in the U.S. Senate. Watching them, it seemed like Feingold would win in a cake walk. Now Johnson is up against Barnes, a charismatic, progressive young candidate who supports student loan debt relief (which the millionaire Johnson calls “unfair”), who led a task force on cleaning up the state’s drinking water (which Johnson claims the government can’t afford to fund because of its wrongheaded focus on climate change), who has an ambitious green jobs plan, a detailed understanding of the struggles of rural Wisconsin and a sophisticated take on public safety that includes better policing, reducing gun violence and ending mass incarceration. But Barnes is lagging in the polls after a barrage of racist attack ads. In the debate, in answer to a question on outsourcing (which Johnson says is not a problem), Barnes talked about how workers in Milwaukee suffered when manufacturing shut down. Johnson talked about a church program he’s involved in that helps Black youth develop a “better attitude.” That’s the difference between the candidates in a nutshell. The race is unfolding against the threat that we are about to lose our democracy to the insurrectionists and election deniers Johnson has enabled. Perhaps part of the Johnson appeal is that he waves away all those threats. Don’t worry about climate change or fascism. All you need is a good attitude, and the confidence that goes with it, which looks good on TV. Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics. Read More…

Gameday Morning Dawg Bites And Open Comment Thread https://digitalalabamanews.com/gameday-morning-dawg-bites-and-open-comment-thread/ The sun is rising just outside of Athens, Georgia and it’s time for another glorious Saturday “Between the Hedges.” West Opelika Polytechnic are headed to town today and I can only hope they’re able to maintain the fine traditions of the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry. You know, traditions like this one: As we’ve come to expect recently, the Tiglesmen are piled into a garbage truck on fire as it careens headfirst at 90 mph toward a steel-reinforced cinder block wall. And at the wheel piloting them (for the moment) is Bryan Harsin. I admire Coach Harsin, I really do. It takes a lot of courage (and/or hubris) to go somewhere you aren’t wanted, fail spectacularly somewhere you aren’t wanted, and continue to stick around somewhere you aren’t wanted. So as we lead up to this afternoon’s game, we salute you, Coach Harsin: And now for your Gameday Morning Dawg Bites heading into Auburn’s clash with your #2 Georgia Bulldogs: It’s always nice to know what the rivals think about a game before it kicks off. Fan Nation at Sports Illustrated lets us know what some of the Tiger faithful are thinking. As usual, we have a hype trailer for today’s game from UGA’s fantastic video team: AL.com has some numbers to watch as the Tigers take on the Bulldogs and across the SEC. Of course, we know you’ll need access to the most up-to-date injury report. If you’re the betting sort, here’s the last minute lines so you can get those wagers in under the line. In NFL Dawgs news, former Bulldog Andrew Thomas is the highest graded player in the league through the first 4 games of the season. As always, this space will also serve as your Early Open Comment Thread. Let us know your thoughts on today’s game, any shenanigans you plan to get up to leading up to kickoff, and what other games you plan to take in on this beautiful October Saturday. MaconDawg will be along shortly with your game threads. Until then… GOOOO DAWGS!!! P.S. If you simply must spit on an Auburn fan, please make sure it’s someone who will go on the internet for the next decade and tell every comment thread that will listen about that one time he really actually got spit on by a Georgia fan like it totally for real happened and was not just some weird coping mechanism he developed to make himself feel better. Read More…

Explosion Damages Crimea Bridge, Imperiling Russian Supply Route https://digitalalabamanews.com/explosion-damages-crimea-bridge-imperiling-russian-supply-route/ Image A fire on the Kerch Strait Bridge in Crimea on Saturday.Credit…Reuters KRYVYI RIH, Ukraine — A fireball erupted on Saturday on the sole bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to Russia, causing a section of the bridge to collapse and imperiling the primary supply route for Russian troops fighting in the south of Ukraine. The 12-mile-long Kerch Strait Bridge has become an important symbol of the claims that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, makes to the peninsula, which his forces illegally seized from Ukraine in 2014. Mr. Putin presided over the opening of the bridge in 2018, personally driving a truck across. The extent of the damage was difficult to immediately assess, though any impediment to traffic on the bridge could have a profound effect on Russia’s ability to wage war in southern Ukraine. The Russian Railways company said all trains to and from Crimea have been temporarily canceled, the state news agency Tass reported. The bridge is the only military supply route linking mainland Russia with the Crimean Peninsula. Without it, the Russian military will be severely limited in its ability to bring fuel, equipment and ammunition to Russian units fighting an increasingly intense battle for the control of southern Ukraine. The peninsula also holds special meaning for Mr. Putin, who has told his people that Crimea is a “sacred place” and Russia’s “holy land.” Videos showed intense flames and a large plume of black smoke billowing off the railroad section of the bridge. At least part of the automobile section, which runs parallel, appeared to have collapsed. Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said in a statement that a truck had exploded on the bridge, igniting seven fuel cisterns being pulled by train on a parallel railroad crossing headed in the direction of Crimea and causing two car spans to partially collapse. While there were no immediate claims of responsibility, Russian and Ukrainian officials indicated that the fire was no accident. The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, referred to the episode as an “emergency” in a statement on Saturday, without assessing who was behind it. He said that Mr. Putin, who had celebrated his 70th birthday on Friday, had been briefed. “The president directed the prime minister to form a government commission to find out the causes of the incident and eliminate the consequences as soon as possible,” Mr. Peskov said, according to Russian state media. Occupation officials in Crimea left little doubt about who they thought was responsible. “Ukrainian vandals were able to reach the Crimean bridge with their bloody hands,” said Vladimir Konstantinov, the head of Crimea’s Kremlin-installed Parliament. Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the cause of the fire, though senior officials have said in the past that the bridge would be a legitimate target for a Ukrainian strike. “Crimea, the bridge, the beginning,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, wrote in a Twitter post on Saturday. “Everything illegal, must be destroyed. Everything stolen returned to Ukraine. All Russian occupiers expelled.” A senior Ukrainian military official did not deny that Ukrainian forces were behind the attack but would not confirm it. “All I can say is that an echelon with fuel intended to supply occupation forces in the south of Ukraine was passing over the bridge,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to the news media. The official added: “Putin should be happy. Not everyone gets such an expensive present on their birthday.” In recent weeks, military traffic heading across the bridge into Crimea has increased, as Russia has raced tanks and artillery equipment to the front lines in the Kherson Region, a fertile slice of southern Ukraine that the Kremlin’s forces occupied in the first weeks of the war. Last week, Ukrainian forces stepped up counteroffensive operations in the region, seizing back significant amounts of land in an effort to drive Russian forces east across the Dnipro River and liberate the city of Kherson, the only regional Ukrainian capital that Russian forces control. Oleg Kryuchkov, adviser to the head of the peninsula’s Russian occupation government, said on his Telegram channel that emergency workers had set up aid stations on the bridge for stranded drivers. Maria Varenikova contributed reporting from Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine. Image The Kerch Strait Bridge in Crimea in 2019.Credit…Aleksey Nikolskyi/Sputnik, via Reuters The 12-mile Kerch Strait Bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to Russia, which was badly damaged by an explosion on Saturday, is not just the primary supply route for Moscow’s forces fighting in southern Ukraine. It is also deeply symbolic for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a pillar of his disputed claim to the Crimean Peninsula since the completion of the twin road spans in 2018. Mr. Putin presided over the bridge’s opening, personally driving a truck across what is a physical link between Russia and Crimea — land that Mr. Putin seized from Ukraine in 2014 and annexed to international outcry. Ukrainians loathe the bridge, whose symbolism and strategic importance for resupply has long made it a potential target. Over the summer, the Ukrainian military posted a taunting image on Twitter threatening to strike it with American-provided guided rockets. The video showed the launch vehicle, a High Mobility Artillery Rocket system, floating on a pink inflatable pool raft in the strait, and the bridge in the background. And at one point over the summer, it appeared to have been targeted: Russian officials said that a drone had triggered air defense systems. The Ukrainian government had no official comment at the time. The damage to the bridge could sever the single overland route to bring supplies from Russia to its bases in Crimea. Moscow had stepped up countermeasures to defend the structure, deploying a target ship — replete with an array of radar reflectors — to protect the bridge from attack and running drills to cover the bridge with a smoke screen. As well as military value, the structure holds deep symbolic significance for the Kremlin. After illegally annexing Crimea in 2014, Moscow vowed to physically connect the peninsula to Russia. For a century, talks of building a bridge across the strait — which runs between two mountain ranges, creating a fierce wind tunnel — had failed to result in action. But Mr. Putin put his weight behind the project, despite that and other engineering challenges, which include a seabed covered with some 250 feet of fine silt deposited by the alluvial flow from various rivers. During World War II, an ice floe unleashed during the spring thaw toppled a German military bridge that been hastily constructed across the waters to aid the Nazi war effort. In 2018, when the new bridge was opened, Mr. Putin hailed it a “remarkable” achievement that, he said, referring to a major city on the peninsula, “makes Crimea and legendary Sevastopol even stronger, and all of us are even closer to each other.” But after explosions at the Saki airfield on Crimea in August, the bridge served a different purpose: It was a quick escape route as the war came to the peninsula, with more than 38,000 cars crossing in one day, the most recorded since Mr. Putin declared it open. Image Smoke rising after explosions in Kharkiv early Saturday.Credit…Francisco Seco/Associated Press The city of Kharkiv in Ukraine’s northeast was rocked by explosions early Saturday, in what appeared to be the latest indiscriminate attack on civilian infrastructure by Russia. Photos of an explosion showed a red fireball lighting up the night sky, enveloped by a billowing cloud of dark smoke. Buildings, including a medical institution, were on fire, Kharkiv’s mayor, Igor Terekhov, wrote on Telegram. It was not immediately known whether there were deaths or injuries. Several towns and cities across Ukraine have been bombarded from the air, as well as with artillery and missile strikes this week, as Moscow’s troops have been forced to retreat across the country. Ukrainian officials and some military analysts said the attacks appeared to signal heightened determination by the Russian military to use its advantage in long-range munitions to exact costs for Moscow’s losses. Strikes in cities and towns across southern Ukraine, including Zaporizhzhia, Nikopol and Berislav along the Dnipro River, have landed in residential areas and turned apartment blocks to rubble. At least 22 civilians were killed and 32 injured in Russian attacks in a 24-hour span ending Friday morning, according to a senior official in the office of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. In the northeast, Ukrainian troops have recaptured nearly 500 towns and villages since early September in counterattacks that have pushed Russian forces out of most of Kharkiv Province, which was occupied early in the war. The regional police force said it had recovered more than 500 bodies of civilians and had found sites where it appeared that people had been tortured. Last month, Mr. Zelensky accused Russia of carrying out “deliberate and cynical strikes” in the region, knocking out critical infrastructure, to avenge Kyiv’s gains. Ukraine continued its advances, retaking 300 square miles in the country’s east this week, Mr. Zelensky said on Friday in his nightly speech. Image The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, on the Dnipro River, has been occupied by Russian forces since early March.Credit…David Guttenfelder for The New York Times KYIV, Ukraine — Russian shelling in the early hours of Saturday morning damaged the last line connecting the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to Ukrainian energy systems, according ...