The nation's largest federal law enforcement agency has new use-of-force rules. How much will change?
February 21, 2023
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Donald Trump's campaign is ruling out anyone who has worked for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Trump aide Justin Caporale confirmed to NBC News that the former president's re-election campaign will blacklist political operatives who assists DeSantis, who is considering a Republican primary challenge.
Caporale, ironically, worked for DeSantis' first gubernatorial campaign in 2018 and briefly served as his director of external affairs, but has worked himself back into Trump's good graces, as have others in the ex-president's orbit, including top aide Susie Wiles.
DeSantis has hinted at entering the 2024 race, but his allies have said he doesn't plan to make an announcement until at least June, when Florida's legislative session will be over.
IN OTHER NEWS: Fox News producer says network made her and Maria Bartiromo 'sacrificial female lambs' in $1.6 billion Dominion suit
Trump, who maintains a strong polling lead over DeSantis, held his first major campaign rally Saturday in Waco, Texas, where he took shots at his chief GOP rival.
“He’s got no personality," Trump said. "That tends to be bad for a politician.”
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Fox News producer says network made her and Maria Bartiromo 'sacrificial female lambs' in $1.6 billion Dominion suit
March 27, 2023
A Fox News producer who is suing the network says she and host Maria Bartiromo were "scapegoated as sacrificial female lambs in its $1.6 billion defamation battle with Dominion Voting Systems, Law&Crime reported.
Abby Grossberg, who worked on Bartiromo's show on the Fox Business Network and then Tucker Carlson's nightly primetime show on Fox News Channel, alleges that the network’s toxic work environment persisted after the sexual harassment lawsuits that led to the ouster of ex-CEO Roger Ailes, and she witnessed antisemitic comments and jokes from Carlson’s managing editor and senior producer Alexander McCaskill.
“Ms. Grossberg’s deposition testimony, as manufactured by Fox News, put Ms. Grossberg and Ms. Bartiromo squarely on the frontline of the Dominion/Fox Lawsuit so they could be scapegoated as sacrificial female lambs,” the amended complaint states.
As CBS News points out, Grossberg "claimed that she did not receive a copy of her deposition transcript until early March, although she had requested it at least six times and then was given days to submit an errata sheet, which lists a witness's changes to his or her testimony. The truncated timeline denied 'her sufficient time to review the transcript as she was entitled to 30 days to review under' state rules."
IN OTHER NEWS: Trump's lawyers caught up in 'infighting' as his legal situation grows more precarious
In her amended suit, Grossberg says the reason for the numerous changes were due to "impermissible coaching and coercion by Fox attorneys," adding that she "felt that I had to do everything possible to avoid becoming the 'star witness' for Dominion or else I would be seriously jeopardizing my career at Fox News and would be subjected to worse terms and conditions of employment than offered to make employees as I understood it."
Grossberg says the strategy to blame her and Bartiromo came from Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch himself.
“True to form, and as corroboration of Fox News’s plan to scapegoat Ms. Bartiromo and Ms. Grossberg, Rupert Murdoch testified at his deposition in the Dominion/Fox Lawsuit that Ms. Bartiromo, but not Fox, ‘endorsed‘ the false notion of a stolen election, throwing Ms. Bartiromo directly under the proverbial bus,” the complaint reads.
Grossberg claims Fox treated “certain blameworthy male colleagues” with “kids gloves."
“This blame-shifting would, in turn, transfer culpability for publishing the alleged defamatory statements about Dominion away from Fox Corporation given that these men were and/or had a direct line of communication with the higher ups at the Network and had to endorse the false coverage of Dominion for the false information to make it on air for the purposes of increasing and retaining viewership,” she alleges.
Read the full report over at Law&Crime.
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The James Webb Space Telescope has measured the temperature of a rocky exoplanet for the first time, finding that a "cousin" of Earth most likely lacks an atmosphere, researchers said Monday.
When the Trappist-1 system was discovered in 2017, astronomers were excited at the prospect that some of its seven rocky planets -- which are roughly similar to Earth in size and mass -- could be habitable.
Just 40 light years from Earth, the planets orbit much closer to their ultracool red dwarf star than the rocky planets in our Solar System. But their star gives off far less energy than our Sun.
The system made an obvious target for the piercing gaze of the Webb telescope, which has unleashed a torrent of scientific discovery since releasing its first observations in July last year.
Astronomers focused on Trappist-1b, the closest planet to the red dwarf, because it was the easiest to spot.
Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) measured the change in brightness when the planet moved behind its star, in what is known as a secondary eclipse.
"Just before disappearing behind the star, the planet gives off the most light because it almost exclusively shows its 'day' side," Elsa Ducrot, a co-author of a new study published in the journal Nature, told AFP.
By subtracting the brightness of the star, the researchers calculated how much infrared light the planet was giving off.
The MIRI instrument was therefore able to act like "a giant touch-free thermometer," NASA said in a statement.
- 'Perfect for baking pizza' -
The planet's dayside temperature was determined to be 230 degrees Celsius (450 Fahrenheit) -- "just about perfect for baking pizza," NASA added.
France's Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) said that the heat was not redistributed throughout this "cousin" of Earth, a role normally provided by an atmosphere.
The scientists therefore concluded that Trappist-1b "has little or no atmosphere," said Ducrot, a CEA astrophysicist. She emphasized that other wavelengths would need to be analyzed to confirm the result.
But it was certain that the atmosphere did not contain carbon dioxide, because that would have absorbed some of the light, she added.
The Spitzer Space Telescope was not able to rule out an atmosphere on Trappist-1b despite observing 28 secondary eclipses, Ducrot said.
"The James Webb saw it in a single eclipse!"
The ability to analyze the potential atmospheres of such rocky exoplanets opens "a new era" in the study of planets outside our Solar System, she added.
It was already known that Trappist-1b was uninhabitable, as it is too close to its star.
But Trappist-1e, Trappist-1f and Trappist-1g are all thought to be in what is called the "goldilocks zone".
Planets in this zone have a moderate temperature which could support liquid water -- considered essential for life anywhere.
© 2023 AFP
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