President Donald Trump caused national outrage when his administration deployed federal agents to cities around the country to engage with civil rights protesters.
But that could just be the beginning — according to Newsweek, election experts are fearful that the president may also try to send federal agents to polling places, intimidating people out of casting ballots.
"The concern from election attorneys, many of whom work with Democrats, is two-fold," wrote Adrian Carrasquillo. "In 2018, a consent decree expired first put in place in 1982 that restricted Republicans from engaging in so-called 'ballot security' activities like campaigns to guard against voter fraud without court approval. That decision by New Jersey district judge John Michael Vazquez, appointed by President Barack Obama, allowed Republicans to mount a sprawling $20 million program in 15 states that will include 50,000 volunteers, according to a New York Times report."
Additionally, Carrasquillo wrote, "Election lawyers who spoke to Newsweek said they saw Trump's tweet last week about possibly delaying the election as irrefutable evidence that he knows he's losing to Joe Biden right now. They worry it means he might be willing to do anything to get an edge on Election Day."
"Cornered dogs are always dangerous," said Juan Carlos Planas, a longtime election lawyer who worked with multiple Republican presidential candidates before backing Joe Biden against Trump. "I fear it more in Wisconsin and in Michigan, where there are Democratic governors who Trump has criticized and whether or not they would have the ability to stop it." Another lawyer affiliated with the Biden campaign said, "What if he deploys ICE to polling locations? If someone is intimidating voters you normally call cops, but what if he's sending federal law enforcement?"
The worry, according to some of these experts, is that African-American and Hispanic voters will be targeted with accusations of voting illegally, which even if they are baseless could discourage them from voting.
Further complicating the issue is that states are making greater use of mail-in voting than ever before, with huge numbers of ballot requests and some states like Nevada and California moving to universal vote-by-mail elections.
This year's Atlantic hurricane season could be one of the busiest on record, with as many as 25 named storms, forecasters said Thursday.
Due to atmospheric and oceanic conditions, "this year, we expect more, stronger, and longer-lived storms than average," said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center.
Forecasters predict this season will see 19 to 25 named storms, of which seven to 11 will reach hurricane strength.
Of these, three to six will be major hurricanes, with winds of 111 miles per hour (180 kph) or greater.
The NOAA was updating a forecast from May that called for 13-19 named storms, with up to 10 of them growing into hurricanes.
The NOAA said this is one of the most active forecasts it has made in its 22-year history of predicting hurricanes.
The forecast includes the nine storms -- two of which became hurricanes -- that have formed so far in what the NOAA said could be an "extremely active" hurricane season.
People in the southern US and the Caribbean have already gotten a taste of violent weather in recent weeks.
Normally, at this time of year there have only been two named storms and the ninth does not come until early October. An average season has 12 named storms.
But Isaias, the ninth storm so far, just hit the Caribbean and the US east coast, leaving five dead as if drifted between hurricane and tropical storm status.
In late July, just days before Isaias, Category 1 Hurricane Hanna formed in the Gulf of Mexico and hit Texas, but without causing major damage.
Following President Donald Trump's claim that former Vice President Joe Biden wants to "hurt God," CNN was quick to note that Biden is in fact a lifelong, practicing Catholic.
But that did not satisfy The Daily Caller, a right-wing website co-founded by Fox News' Tucker Carlson — which sent a press inquiry to CNN communications official Matt Dornic, attacking Biden's religious beliefs.
Dornic proceeded to post the message on Twitter, calling it "really gross" — and pointing out that the Catholic faith gives Biden broad leeway to follow his personal conscience.
President Donald Trump spent more than two minutes talking about water and water pressure on Thursday, saying "a lot of people" have thanked him for fixing the water so they have enough pressure to shower and wash their clothes and dishes.
"I was with somebody and they said: 'We don't have enough water sir,'" Trump claimed. It's been found whenever he tells a "sir" story they are generally false.
"They don't have enough water – 'cause they put restrictors on. So you don't have any water," a noticeably sweaty president told the audience at a Whirlpool factory in Clyde, Ohio. Although it was an official taxpayer-paid White House event, Trump turned the entire speech into a partisan campaign rally, which he regularly does.
"I said, 'What is that? What is that?' In most states, outside of desert areas we have so much water we don't know what to do with it, right? A lot of states. Your state does pretty well with it, right? They have plenty of water," Trump said, amid a pandemic that has now killed 160,000 people in America.
"So I passed a regulation, I signed a regulation to give the dishwashers much more water. And I was asking today – and that, by the way includes your washers. You don't need too much water in your dryers. But it includes your washers. And I was just saying to your brilliant people that are, uh, doing such a good job running your company, I said, 'How much impact has that had?' They said, 'Unbelievable. It's been unbelievable.' Because I had people says they'd wash their dishes and they'd press the button five times. So in the end they're probably wasting more water than if they did it once. So do you notice the people that make the machines you know what I'm talking about."
"We now have the water that you need, instead of stupid where you have much less water than you need and you just keep going over and over again. I had people say they press the button five times. They didn't have enough water. And the same thing with sinks, toilets, and showers. You go into a new home, you turn on the faucet no water comes out, you turn on the shower. If you're like me you can't wash your beautiful hair properly. You waste 20 minutes longer. Please come out the water it drips right you know what I'm talking, they put restrictors on, I get rid of that, I signed it out."
"It's common sense. So now when you actually go into a new home and pay a lot of money you turn on a faucet and water actually comes out isn't that nice? That was a regulation that was put in by a lot of people that don't understand life. Because you end up using the same amount of water you just let it run three times longer. It's crazy."
So focus shifted to the relative sizes of brain regions. Phrenologists suggested the part of the cerebrum above the eyes, called the frontal lobe, is most important for intelligence and is proportionally larger in men, while the parietal lobe, just behind the frontal lobe, is proportionally larger in women. Later, neuroanatomists argued instead the parietal lobe is more important for intelligence and men’s are actually larger.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, researchers looked for distinctively female or male characteristics in smaller brain subdivisions. As a behavioral neurobiologist and author, I think this search is misguided because human brains are so varied.
Anatomical brain differences
The largest and most consistent brain sex difference has been found in the hypothalamus, a small structure that regulates reproductive physiology and behavior. At least one hypothalamic subdivision is larger in male rodents and humans.
But the goal for many researchers was to identify brain causes of supposed sex differences in thinking – not just reproductive physiology – and so attention turned to the large human cerebrum, which is responsible for intelligence.
Within the cerebrum, no region has received more attention in both race and sex difference research than the corpus callosum, a thick band of nerve fibers that carries signals between the two cerebral hemispheres.
Even when a brain region shows a sex difference on average, there is typically considerable overlap between the male and female distributions. If a trait’s measurement is in the overlapping region, one cannot predict the person’s sex with confidence. For example, think about height. I am 5’7". Does that tell you my sex? And brain regions typically show much smaller average sex differences than height does.
Neuroscientist Daphna Joel and her colleagues examined MRIs of over 1,400 brains, measuring the 10 human brain regions with the largest average sex differences. They assessed whether each measurement in each person was toward the female end of the spectrum, toward the male end or intermediate. They found that only 3% to 6% of people were consistently “female” or “male” for all structures. Everyone else was a mosaic.
Prenatal hormones
When brain sex differences do occur, what causes them?
While prenatal hormones probably cause most brain sex differences in nonhumans, there are some cases where the cause is directly genetic.
This was dramatically shown by a zebra finch with a strange anomaly – it was male on its right side and female on its left. A singing-related brain structure was enlarged (as in typical males) only on the right, though the two sides experienced the same hormonal environment. Thus, its brain asymmetry was not caused by hormones, but by genes directly. Since then, direct effects of genes on brain sex differences have also been found in mice.
Learning changes the brain
Many people assume human brain sex differences are innate, but this assumption is misguided.
Humans learn quickly in childhood and continue learning – alas, more slowly – as adults. From remembering facts or conversations to improving musical or athletic skills, learning alters connections between nerve cells called synapses. These changes are numerous and frequent but typically microscopic – less than one hundredth of the width of a human hair.
Some London taxi drivers do not use GPS – they know the city by heart, a learning process that takes three to four years on average.
Studies of an unusual profession, however, show learning can change adult brains dramatically. London taxi drivers are required to memorize “the Knowledge” – the complex routes, roads and landmarks of their city. Researchers discovered this learning physically altered a driver’s hippocampus, a brain region critical for navigation. London taxi drivers’ posterior hippocampi were found to be larger than nondrivers by millimeters – more than 1,000 times the size of synapses.
So it’s not realistic to assume any human brain sex differences are innate. They may also result from learning. People live in a fundamentally gendered culture, in which parenting, education, expectations and opportunities differ based on sex, from birth through adulthood, which inevitably changes the brain.
Ultimately, any sex differences in brain structures are most likely due to a complex and interacting combination of genes, hormones and learning.
According to BuzzFeed News, two students at a Georgia high school say they were suspended after they posted photos and videos of crowded hallways at their school to social media.
Speaking to BuzzFeed News, one student said the school suspended her for five days for violating school polices that state "that I used my phone in the hallway without permission, used my phone for social media, and posting pictures of minors without consent.”
“Day two at North Paulding High School. It is just as bad. We were stopped because it was jammed," she wrote in a tweet with one photo. "This is not ok. Not to mention the 10% mask rate."
"President Trump just betrayed seniors, ordering cuts in Social Security funding because Congress wouldn't go along with his payroll tax cut scheme."
An advocacy group representing more than four million American retirees warned Thursday that President Donald Trump took a dangerous step toward "single-handedly" dismantling Social Security by announcing he plans to sign an executive order suspending collection of the payroll tax as early as Friday afternoon.
With congressional negotiations over the next Covid-19 stimulus package still at an impasse, Trump told reporters Thursday that executive orders to suspend the payroll tax, extend boosted unemployment benefits, and reestablish an expired eviction moratorium are "being drawn now" despite questions over whether the president has the authority to unilaterally take any of those actions.
"Older Americans have earned their benefits through a lifetime of work. Their retirement security should not be put at risk because President Trump is mad at Congress for not bending to his will."
—Richard Fiesta, Alliance for Retired Americans
Trump said he expects to sign the orders "tomorrow afternoon or maybe the following morning" if White House negotiators and Democratic leaders don't reach a deal. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have rejected the idea of cutting the payroll tax, the primary funding mechanism for Social Security.
Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said in a statement that "after learning that Democratic and Republican congressional leaders would not go along with his harebrained scheme to cut Social Security's dedicated funding source, President Trump lashed out and announced he would begin dismantling the system single-handedly."
"Seniors pay for their housing, food, and medicine with their Social Security, putting $1 trillion into our economy every year," said Fiesta. "Older Americans have earned their benefits through a lifetime of work. Their retirement security should not be put at risk because President Trump is mad at Congress for not bending to his will."
The group's 4.4 million members, he vowed, "will fight this attempt to gut Social Security."
Progressive advocacy group Social Security Works tweeted Thursday that suspending collection of the payroll tax is "defunding of Social Security, as a first step to cutting our earned benefits."
"And doing so by executive order is unconstitutional," the group said.
Alabama GOP Rep. Will Dismukes, who recently made headlines when he appeared at a celebration for Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest, now has a warrant out for his arrest for felony theft from a business where he once worked, according to a report from the Alabama Political Reporter.
Montgomery County District Attorney Daryl Bailey said Thursday that the charge is a Class B felony and applies when a person steals more than $2,500.
"I will tell you that the alleged amount is a lot more than that,” Bailey said.
Dismukes has until Thursday afternoon to turn himself in.
WSFA reports Thursday that the theft occurred at Weiss Commercial Flooring Inc. in East Montgomery.
Writing in the Washington Post this Thursday, columnist Jennifer Rubin says that Senate Republicans are in serious trouble, especially in light of the stimulus bill they rolled out this week.
According to Rubin, the Senate GOP is in dire straits because "they have allowed the anti-government, anti-science Trump sycophants to disclaim any interest in the bill, thereby handing the reins to Democrats."
Rubin writes that some Republicans saying they want to see essential workers being taken care of in the bill are speaking up too late. "If only they they had some power in February to remove the unfit and corrupt president from office, instead of leaving him there to purge witnesses from his administration, seek vengeance on foes, force out inspectors general and botch the response to the coronavirus," Rubin writes.
"Let me suggest that Senate Republicans, angst-ridden over the failure to conclude a deal, should have taken action when Trump put his reelection above national security concerns; when he refused to hold Russia accountable for bounties on our troops; when he aired false, quack theories and contradicted expert advice; when he insisted on reopening states while the virus still raged; and when he held a rally endangering thousands of Americans," Rubin continues.
Facebook said Thursday it took down accounts running a deceptive campaign out of Romania pretending to be Americans supporting US President Donald Trump ahead of the coming election.
The leading online social network removed 35 Facebook accounts, three pages, and 88 Instagram accounts as part of an ongoing fight against "coordinated inauthentic behavior," according to security policy head Nathaniel Gleicher.
"The people behind this network used fake accounts to pose as Americans, amplify and comment on their own content, and manage pages including some posing as President Trump fan pages," Gleicher said.
The network posted about the upcoming presidential election; the Trump campaign, conservative ideology, Christian beliefs and the far-right organization Qanon linked to conspiracy theories, according to Facebook.
The Facebook security team determined that the activity originated in Romania and focused on the US.
"We found this network as part of our investigation into suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior ahead of the 2020 election in the US," Gleicher said.
The network often reposted stories by US conservative news networks and from the Trump campaign, according to Facebook.
Facebook pages in the campaign had about 1,600 followers, while about 7,200 people followed one or more of its Instagram accounts, the California-based internet giant reported.
Coordinated deception such as this "blurs the line between healthy public debate and manipulation," Gleicher said while briefing reporters.
"We can only tackle one piece of what is a whole-of-society challenge; it is increasingly clear no single organization can handle this alone."
He echoed a call from Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg for political leaders to establish clear rules regarding what kinds of contents or behaviors should not be tolerated by online platforms.
"Even though it is hard to pin down motive, the behavior still violates our policies and we can take down the content," he said. "It doesn't matter what side they are on."
Clues as to who ran the campaign were sparse, but there was "ample evidence" it used deception to artificially amplify pro-Trump messages, according to the Atlantic Council digital forensics team.
"The overall impact of this effort appears limited, as many of the accounts primarily interacted with one another’s posts," an Atlantic Council analysis concluded.
"Overall, the network appeared to be targeting pro-Trump conservatives in the United States."
A separate coordinated campaign derailed in July by Facebook appeared to be aimed at China.
The social network removed 303 Facebook accounts, 181 Pages, 44 Groups and 31 Instagram accounts for violating its policy against "coordinated inauthentic behavior on behalf of a foreign entity."
The campaign was operated globally, from regions including North America, Europe, Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Indonesia, according to Facebook.
Those behind the campaign posted about global news and events including the Hong Kong protests; US policies toward China; the Falun Gong movement, and criticism of the Chinese government, Gleicher said.
"Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation linked this network to Truth Media, a digital media outlet," Gleicher said, adding that Facebook had banned the outlet.
President Donald Trump used a supposedly non-political event Thursday afternoon to attack his Democratic opponent with a lie, saying former Vice President Joe Biden will "hurt God" if elected.
In the strange pronouncement on the tarmac in Cleveland, Ohio, Trump falsely claimed that Biden will "take away your guns. Destroy your Second Amendment. No religion. No anything. Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God. He’s against guns. He’s against energy."
The envoy leading President Donald Trump's hardline push on Iran quit on Thursday, months before an election that could reorient US policy.
Brian Hook, a stalwart Republican considered one of the most powerful figures at the State Department, decided to return to the private sector, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said.
Hook "has achieved historic results countering the Iranian regime," Pompeo said in a statement.
Hook will be replaced by Elliott Abrams, another veteran Republican who was an intellectual architect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and has been leading Trump's unsuccessful campaign to oust Venezuela's leftist president, Nicolas Maduro.
Abrams, known in the 1980s for his staunch defense of right-wing strongmen in Latin America, will handle both Iran and Venezuela, Pompeo said.
Hook has been in the forefront of Trump's campaign against Iran which has included pulling out of a nuclear accord and imposing sweeping unilateral sanctions.
The decision by Hook, a lawyer, to head to the private sector comes three months before US elections in which Trump is trailing Democrat Joe Biden in the polls.
Biden was a strong backer of the nuclear accord negotiated under former president Barack Obama and has promised to salvage a diplomatic solution.
Hook exits just as the Trump administration readies a key effort on Iran -- seeking to expand a UN arms embargo on the clerical regime.
Pompeo said that the United States will submit a UN Security Council resolution on the arms ban next week, despite opposition to the move from veto-wielding Russia and China.
If the effort fails, Pompeo and Hook have threatened to employ a disputed legal procedure aimed at forcing UN sanctions against Iran.
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston appeared Thursday on CNN, where he explained when he believed President Donald Trump would be indicted.
After receiving a subpoena from New York prosecutors last year, Deutsche Bank reportedly handed over detailed records about their dealings with Trump, according to the New York Times. The subpoena indicates that the investigation of Trump's family business is more expansive than previously thought.
"Prosecutors already have the basic tax information on Donald Trump. Your state tax return is virtually identical to your federal return, and the IRS shares tax information with the state," Johnston explained to CNN host Brianna Keilar.
"What they don't have are the business records of the Trump Organization, the accounting records that they've been fighting for from Mazars USA -- Trump's accounting firm -- including drafts of tax returns and instructions by Trump, and the banking records. Once they have all of those records and can present them to a grand jury, I would anticipate you'll see Donald Trump indicted."
"Where would it go from there?" Keilar inquired.
"Once the grand jury hands up an indictment, there will be a specification of charges," Johnston said. "So we won't actually see, for example, the banking records. But the indictment will contain specific information, it's alleged that the defendant did the following act on the following date or time period. So we'll see some outline of what's involved. The next thing we are most likely to see is something leaked from the defense."
