WorldAssociated PressDad of 3 girls killed in New Zealand says he's forgiven wife
The father of three young girls who were killed last week in New Zealand said Thursday his precious angels had been ripped away from him in a loss he would carry with him for the rest of his life. Dickason wrote his thoughts in a letter that was read aloud by a reverend during a candlelight vigil that was attended by hundreds of people outside the family's home in the South Island town of Timaru. Lauren Dickason, 40, has been charged with murder in the deaths of her twin 2-year-old girls Maya and Karla, and their 6-year-old sister Liane, in a crime that has shocked New Zealand.
U.S.INSIDERNeighbor says they saw Brian Laundrie and his parents leave their Florida home with an 'attached camper' after he returned from his trip with Gabby Petito
A couple who lives near Brian Laundrie said they saw him and his parents drive off with an attached camper earlier this month. One neighbor told WINK-TV they saw Laundrie leave his Florida home on September 11, the same day Gabby Petito was reported missing. Laundrie's family told police last week they have not seen him since September 14.
PoliticsHuffPostMary Trump Pulls No Punches When Naming Her ‘Stupidest’ Relative
Mary Trump was asked “what the hell is going on” with her cousin, Donald Trump Jr., and didn't hold back. In this week's episode of the “UnPresidented” podcast, Donald Trump's niece described her cousin as “weak” and a suck-up who was ultimately “left in the dust” by his father, the former president. Trump Jr. is “like many other people in my family,” said Mary Trump, a psychologist who has become one of the fiercest critics of her uncle and his children.
BusinessAssociated PressCalifornia 1st to set quota limits for retailers like Amazon
California on Wednesday became the first state to bar mega-retailers from firing warehouse workers for missing quotas that interfere with bathroom and rest breaks under a new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that grew from Amazon's drive to speed goods to consumers more quickly. The measure also bars Amazon, the online retail giant, and similar companies from disciplining workers for following health and safety laws and allows employees to sue to suspend unsafe quotas or reverse retaliation. The bill applies to all warehouse distribution centers, though proponents were driven by Amazon's dominance.
HealthBuzzFeedThis Woman's Story Of How She Gained 50 Pounds In Three Months And Was Told By A Doctor That Her Bloating Was "Psychosomatic" Has Gone Viral On TikTok
Kalista Dwyer is a 22-year-old content creator who recently documented her journey with extreme bloating and weight gain on TikTok. In the video, Kalista explains that she'd inexplicably gained 50 pounds in just three months, experienced intense bloating and pain every time she ate, had swelling in her hands, and was fatigued. BuzzFeed reached out to Kalista, who said that her symptoms began last November, when she spent two weeks visiting Costa Rica.
- U.S.Fox News
Brian Laundrie argued in Wyoming restaurant hours before Gabby Petito vanished: eyewitnesses
FIRST ON FOX: One of the last times Gabby Petito was seen alive involved an explosive argument between Brian Laundrie and wait staff at a Jackson Hole restaurant, according to a New Orleans couple who said they witnessed the spat. "I have chills right now," Nina Celie Angelo told Fox News Digital Wednesday. "It's crazy because it wasn't just like we passed them on the street — it was a full blown incident."
PoliticsAssociated PressArizona Republican resigns after secret recording released
A Republican official in Arizona resigned Tuesday from the board overseeing Maricopa County after a recording emerged of him criticizing his GOP colleagues for opposing a review of the 2020 election. During the meeting recorded surreptitiously last March, Supervisor Steve Chucri suggested two fellow Republican county supervisors opposed the review by Senate Republicans because they nearly lost their own 2020 races. Chucri apologized in a statement announcing his resignation and said he shouldn't have made the comments, adding “the political landscape has changed for the worst this year.
PoliticsHuffPostRuh-Roh! Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ‘Scooby-Doo’ Stunt Did Not Go Well
Conspiracy theory-endorsing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) turned to the cartoon “Scooby-Doo” to try to trash the Green New Deal on the House floor on Wednesday, and critics couldn't believe the stunt wasn't a parody. “This is a simple meme that you would find on the internet but this meme is very real,” said Greene, pointing to a poster held up by an aide of character Fred Jones unmasking a baddie who turns out to be the emblem of the Chinese Communist Party. “The Green New Deal, surprise, serves China and China only,” added Greene, who's become something of a celebrity on the right for her peddling of racist and anti-science conspiracies and unswerving devotion to ex-President Donald Trump.
PoliticsWashington ExaminerBarr had 'Oh, s***' moment when Trump blew up over Durham: Book
Attorney General William Barr braced himself in the face of unprecedented fury displayed by President Donald Trump when he was told special counsel John Durham would likely not finish the criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation until sometime during the incoming Biden administration, according to a new book. The fiery episode happened in early December during a White House meeting after Barr explained why he told the Associated Press that the Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, Watergate sleuth Bob Woodward and fellow Washington Post journalist Robert Costa wrote in Peril, which was released on Tuesday. Already frustrated by Barr's refusal to back his claims of a stolen election, Trump asked his attorney general when a conclusion would come in Durham's inquiry into the origins and conduct of the Russia investigation he often dubs a "witch hunt."
U.S.Reuters'Critical race theory' roils a Tennessee school district
Robin Steenman, an Air Force veteran and white mother of three, is fed up with the way public schools in her community of Franklin, Tennessee are teaching kids about race. She believes that the reading materials and teachers' manuals are biased, specifically the lessons taught to second graders about civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. Kids leave class believing that white people are oppressors and minorities are victims, Steenman claims. While her only school-age child attends private school, Steenman nevertheless wants the public system, Williamson County Schools, to change its approach.
BusinessBusiness Insider2 former Chick-fil-A employees pled guilty to defrauding the company of half a million dollars to pay for luxury cars, vacations, and a house
A former Chick-fil-A manager and hospitality director pled guilty to fraud charges. The two men intercepted payments from customers into their own bank accounts. A former Chick-fil-A manager pled guilty to charges of defrauding the company and customers of nearly $500,000, according to a release from the US Department of Justice.
U.S.PeopleWhy JFK's Aide Decided to Tell Her Side of Their 4-Year Affair — and the Hard Lessons She Learned
Hank Walker/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock; Courtesy Diana de vegh From left: John F. Kennedy in 1957 and Diana de Vegh circa 1963 She leapt at Kennedy's invitation to come to another of his appearances the following week — this time, escorted by his driver. She was charmed by his humor ("I'm really working hard to get one single vote here," he'd quip) and that grin. "He would put his arm across the back of the seat and I'd think, 'Ooh, I wonder what that means,' " she says.
WorldAssociated PressChina sends 19 fighter jets towards Taiwan in show of force
China sent 19 fighter jets toward Taiwan in a large display of force Thursday, after the self-governing island announced its intention to join an 11-nation Pacific trade group that China has also applied to join. Taiwan deployed air patrol forces in response to the Chinese jets and tracked them on their air defense systems, the island's Defense Ministry said in a statement. Among the various jets, some of which flew in a long L-shaped path, were 12 J-16 and two J-11s, as well as bombers and an anti-submarine aircraft.
U.S.HuffPostBison Charges And Hurls Another Bison In Yellowstone Showdown
Well, blow me down. That's a mighty buffalo. The National Park Service celebrated Talk Like A Pirate Day on Sunday by sharing video of a male bison charging and flinging another male bison.
PoliticsThe Daily BeastTrumpworld’s Star Lawyers Exit as Storm Clouds Gather
Donald Trump is facing even more legal challenges than normal—which is saying something for a man so litigious and familiar with legal duress. When Trump sued The New York Times and his niece Mary earlier this week, the attorney who filed the lawsuit was a relatively unknown lawyer. Alina Habba, based in the same town as the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, comes with a résumé far less ostentatious than the legal CVs that the twice-impeached former president has come to expect.
- ScienceAFP Videographics
Portugal grape pickers do it in the buff
With early autumn temperatures in Portugal hovering around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), a group of nudism enthusiasts don't even sport a vine leaf to cover their modesty as they go about their work in a vineyard 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Lisbon.
BusinessBuzzFeed18 Things Home Depot Employees Absolutely Hate That Customers Do And 5 Things They Absolutely Love
div> 1. span> Home Depot employees hate when you do dangerous stuff like this: THESE CUSTOMERS ARE WILD from HomeDepot 2.
- U.S.NY Daily News
‘Remember me?’ NYC gunman asks before shooting teenager
It took a day, but a Bronx gunman got his revenge on a teenager who tossed him around like a rag doll during a road rage clash, police said Tuesday. “Remember me?” the triggerman said before pumping two bullets into the 17-year-old on Oak Point Ave. near Hunts Point Ave. at 4 a.m. in Hunts Point on Monday, cops said.
WorldReutersExclusive-Echoes, uncertainty as Afghan pilots await U.S. help in Tajikistan
A U.S.-trained Afghan pilot was talking to Reuters on a smuggled cellphone from Tajikistan, where he is being held, when something strange happened - his voice started looping, repeating everything he had just said, word for word. It also came amid growing feelings of impatience and uncertainty among the Afghan pilots and personnel who have been held by the government in Tajikistan since fleeing there on Aug. 15. There are 143 Afghans detained at a sanatorium in a mountainous, rural area outside of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, waiting and hoping for over a month for transfer by the United States.
U.S.HuffPostArmy Officer Admits Having All Vaccines But Not COVID-19 Shot Because Of 'Freedom'
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Paul Douglas Hague raised eyebrows on Wednesday when he admitted to Fox News' Sean Hannity that he'd received all the vaccines mandated for servicemembers but said he wouldn't receive the COVID-19 shot because of “freedom.” Hague said he objected to the Pentagon's mandatory COVID-19 vaccination order and would rather quit the military after 18 years of service, and two years prior to retirement, than be inoculated from the disease with the shots that have been safely administered to billions of people worldwide and proven to break the link between transmission and serious illness and death. Hague submitted his resignation last week.
PoliticsPeopleBiden Had a Four-Word Reaction After He Found Trump's Giant Video Golf Setup in the White House: Book
When President Joe Biden moved into the White House in January, a new book reports, he found his new home somewhat cold — with unusual remnants of Donald Trump's presidency. Peril, by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, contains headline-making reporting on the fraught final days of Trump's administration. "Trump's existence permeated the White House," the Peril authors write, according to an ABC News report.
- U.S.Associated Press
High school goes remote again, blames student misbehavior
A Connecticut high school that recently resumed full in-person learning for the first time since the onset of the pandemic sent students home temporarily for remote learning — not because of the virus, but rather issues with misbehavior. New Britain High School, in suburban Hartford, is “hitting the refresh button” and will restart the school year, Principal Damon Pearce wrote in a letter late Tuesday to students and families. Pearce initially said instruction would be done remotely through the end of this week, but the district later notified parents that students would be welcome back Thursday for a half-day.
ScienceThe Weather NetworkThis animal lets you know when fall is here and what kind of winter to expect
Maybe you realize fall is in the air when you go to grab a sweater or light jacket before leaving your house or maybe it is when you have to get the rake out of storage because the leaves have turned from green to red and then fallen from the trees. Last year though, on a trip to the Okanagan Valley, The Weather Network found out a new way to tell when the seasons are about to change. Jenna Bower is an interpreter at the Nk'Mip Desert Cultural Centre, and while we were touring the grounds, we spotted a deer grazing for food.
U.S.The Daily BeastWas This ‘Commotion’ in a Wyoming Restaurant the Last Time Gabby Petito Was Seen Alive?
One of the final sightings of Gabby Petito before she vanished was so alarming to staff at a Wyoming restaurant that they reported the encounter to the FBI this week. Details on the Aug. 27 incident at The Merry Piglets restaurant in Jackson are scarce, but a witness told CNN there was a “commotion” for all to see as tensions apparently built between Petito and Brian Laundrie, her fiancé who vanished around the same time the 22-year-old Long Island native's body was found. Laundrie, who was declared a person of interest in Petito's disappearance, is now the subject of massive search efforts.
U.S.Associated PressSheriff IDs woman found in 1977 as victim of serial killer
A Mississippi sheriff's department said Tuesday that it has identified the skeletal remains of a woman found nearly 44 years ago, and investigators believe she was a victim of the now-deceased Samuel Little, the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. Hunters found the woman's remains in December 1977 in the small community of Escatawpa in coastal Jackson County, Mississippi, and investigators had referred to her since then as “Escatawpa Jane Doe.” Sheriff Mike Ezell said in a news release Tuesday that investigators used DNA to identify the remains as those of Clara Birdlong, who was born in 1933 in Leflore County, Mississippi, which is nearly 300 miles (483 kilometers) northwest of Jackson County.
“It wouldn’t take much of an annual wealth tax to rescue the retirement system.”
“Privatizing Social Security — or at least letting individuals opt-out so they can escape the sinking ship — would be a huge win.”
“Congress could save hundreds of billions of dollars by modestly paring back the benefit formula for future wealthy retirees.”
“Raising the retirement age reduces the number of beneficiaries, thereby reducing the costs of the program.”
“Social Security as we know it needs to be abolished and replaced with a better system.”