Trump legal team examines 22 voting machines in state of Michigan

Judge orders investigation into Dominion voting systems; King's College senior fellow Mark Smith reacts on 'Fox & Friends First.'

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  • 'Honeymoon is not over' between Biden and progressives

    There's a stark contrast — at least for now — between the loud internal disputes between progressives and the Democratic Party’s more moderate establishment that have raged for the past five years.

  • How one of Japan's 'secret weapons' at Pearl Harbor ended up being the US's first prisoner of war

    As Japanese planes swarmed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, a secretive naval unit - "a suicide squadron" - attempted its own ill-fated attack.

  • Israeli police cleared in shooting of maimed Palestinian boy

    Israeli authorities have cleared police of any wrongdoing in the case of a 9-year-old boy who lost an eye after apparently being shot in the face by an Israeli officer earlier this year. Malik Eissa was struck by what appeared to be a sponge-tipped munition last February and lost vision in his left eye, and his family says he hasn't returned to school because of recurring medical treatments and the embarrassment of being disfigured and reliant on a prosthetic eye. Residents said he had just gotten off a school bus in the Palestinian neighborhood of Issawiya in east Jerusalem when police opened fire.

  • EU to discuss measures against Turkey in eastern Mediterranean row: Germany

    European foreign ministers will discuss measures against Turkey at their meeting on Monday as there has been no de-escalation in the conflict in the eastern Mediterranean in the past months, Germany's foreign minister said on Monday. "Germany has worked hard to facilitate a dialogue between the European Union and Turkey over the past months," Heiko Maas said before meeting his European Union counterparts.

  • What 'safe harbor day' is and why it's bad news for Trump

    Congress must count the electoral votes from states that meet the Tuesday deadline.

  • Hong Kong politician who fled to UK has bank accounts frozen

    A Hong Kong pro-democracy politician who abruptly fled the city last week fearing jail has had his some of bank accounts frozen amid a national security law investigation. Ted Hui Chi-fung, 38, who was one of the 15 former pro-democracy lawmakers who resigned from Hong Kong’s Legislative Council in November, left the former British colony last week amid a political crackdown that has seen the recent imprisonment of high profile pro-democracy activists such as Joshua Wong and Jimmy Lai. Hui, who was facing at least nine charges prior to leaving, including criminal damage and perverting the course of justice, initially travelled to Denmark after receiving an invitation from Danish lawmakers. On arrival, he declared his exile on Facebook. Shortly after Hui’s arrival he discovered that Hong Kong authorities had initially frozen several of his family’s bank accounts, including an account with HSBC. “It is obvious that the regime has made political retaliation through economic oppression and has used the law to suppress my family in order to force the voices of opposition,” he wrote on Facebook. According to the local reports, Hong Kong police said on Sunday they were investigating whether Hui had breached the national security law or laundered money with a crowdfunding campaign, and had frozen some accounts with a total of $850,000 (HKD) (£81,886).

  • Los Angeles police move in on BLM protesters

    Video shared online shows police moving in on the protesters and hitting them with batons. One protester was reportedly arrested. Protesters say they are opposed to Garcetti, who co-chaired Biden's campaign, based on his handling of issues such as homelessness and the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Brazil's president rejects COVID-19 vaccine, undermining a century of progress toward universal inoculation

    The world is eagerly awaiting the release of several COVID-19 vaccines, but Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is not. “I’m not going to take it. It’s my right,” he said in a Nov. 26 social media broadcast. Bolsonaro, who came down with COVID-19 in July, has also criticized face masks. He and his more faithful supporters oppose any suggestion of mandatory coronavirus vaccinations. Vaccine resistance has a long history in Brazil. In November 1904, thousands of people in the city of Rio de Janeiro protested government-mandated smallpox vaccinations in a famous revolt that nearly ended with a coup. Making modern BrazilThe smallpox vaccine had arrived in Brazil almost a century earlier. But the syringes were long, left skin pockmarked and could transmit other diseases such as syphilis. Between 1898 and 1904, only 2% to 10% of Rio’s population was vaccinated yearly, according to historian Sidney Chalhoub. In 1904, smallpox killed 0.4% of Rio residents – a higher percentage of the population than COVID-19’s victims in New York City this year.But these were not the only reasons Brazil made vaccinations mandatory in 1904. As part of a “modernization” plan to attract European immigration and foreign investment, President Rodrigues Alves was committed to eradicating epidemics – not just smallpox, but also yellow fever and the bubonic plague.To rid Rio de Janeiro, then the nation’s capital, of sanitary hazards while opening space for Parisian-style avenues and buildings, hundreds of tenements were demolished between 1903 and 1909. Almost 40,000 people – mostly Afro-Brazilians but also poor Italian, Portuguese and Spanish immigrants – were evicted and removed from downtown Rio. Many were left homeless, forced to resettle on nearby hillsides or in distant rural areas. Meanwhile, public health agents accompanied by armed police systematically disinfected homes with sulfur that destroyed furniture and other belongings – whether residents welcomed them or not. Conspiracy and barricadesPoliticians and military officers who opposed President Alves saw opportunity in the outrage these health initiatives caused. They stoked discontent.With the help of labor organizers and news editors, Alves’ opponents led a campaign against Brazil’s public health mandates throughout 1904. Newspapers reported on violent home disinfections and forced vaccinations. Senators and other public figures declared that mandatory vaccinations encroached on people’s homes and bodies.In mid-November of that year, thousands of protesters gathered in public squares to rally against public health efforts. Rio police reacted with disproportionate force, triggering six days of unrest in the city. A racially diverse crowd of students, construction workers, port workers and other residents fought back, armed with rocks, housewares or the tools of their trade, flipping over streetcars to barricade the streets. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, conspirators were mobilizing young military cadets. Their plan: to overthrow Alves’ government. Their scheme was foiled when the president called upon both the Army and the Navy to contain protesters and detain alleged insurgents. Brazil’s great vaccine revolt was soon suppressed. The language of rightsAfterward, newspapers portrayed protesters as an ignorant mass, manipulated by cunning politicians. They deemed one of the uprising’s popular leaders, Horácio José da Silva – known as “Black Silver” – a “disorderly thug.”But Brazil’s vaccine revolt was more than a cynical political manipulation. Digging into archives, historians like me are learning what really motivated the uprising.The violent and segregationist features of Alves’ urban plan are one obvious answer. In early 20th-century Brazil, most people – women, those who couldn’t read, the unemployed – couldn’t vote. For these Brazilians, the streets were the only place to have their voices heard.But why would they so virulently oppose methods that controlled the spread of disease?Delving into newspapers and legal records, I have found that critics of Brazil’s 1904 public health drive often expressed their opposition in terms of “inviolability of the home,” both on the streets and in courts.For elite Brazilians, invoking this constitutional right was about protecting the privacy of their households, where men ruled over wives, children and servants. Public health agents threatened this patriarchal authority by demanding access to homes and women’s bodies.Poor men and women in Rio also held patriarchal values. But for them there was more than privacy at stake in 1904. Throughout the 19th century, enslaved Afro-Brazilians had formed families and built homes, even on plantations, carving out spaces of relative freedom from their masters. After slavery was abolished in 1888, many freed Afro-Brazilians shared crowded tenements with immigrants. By the time of Alves’s vaccination drive, the poor of Rio had been fighting eviction and police violence for decades. For Black Brazilians, then, defending their rights to choose what to do – or not to do – with their homes and bodies was part of a much longer struggle for social, economic and political inclusion. Deadly learning experienceFour years after the 1904 revolt, Rio was struck by another smallpox epidemic. With so many people unvaccinated, deaths doubled; almost 1% of the city perished.[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]It was a deadly learning experience. From then on, Brazilian leaders framed mandatory smallpox, measles and other vaccines as a means to protect the common good, and invested in educational campaigns to explain why. Throughout the 20th century, vaccinations were extremely successful in Brazil. Since the 1990s, 95% of children have been vaccinated, though the numbers are dropping.Today, Brazil is one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. As in the past, Afro-Brazilians are hurting more than others.By invoking Brazilians’ individual right not to get vaccinated against COVID-19, President Bolsonaro is ignoring the lessons of 1904 – undermining a century of hard work fighting disease in Brazil.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Pedro Cantisano, University of Nebraska Omaha.Read more: * COVID-19 is deadlier for black Brazilians, a legacy of structural racism that dates back to slavery * In Brazil’s raging pandemic, domestic workers fear for their lives – and their jobsPedro Cantisano does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

  • Lawmakers say COVID-19 relief bill won't offer $1,200 checks

    With time running out, lawmakers on Sunday closed in on a proposed COVID-19 relief bill that would provide roughly $300 in extra federal weekly unemployment benefits but not another round of $1,200 in direct payments to most Americans, leaving that issue for President-elect Joe Biden to wrestle over with a new Congress next year. The cash payments were popular when they were first distributed after the pandemic hit, and Biden on Friday had expressed hope that a second wave might come after weekend negotiations. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, indicated that excluding the checks while assuring small-business aid and renters’ assistance was the only way to reach agreement with Republicans who are putting firm limits on the bill’s final price tag.

  • 10 Indoor Plant Stands That Seriously Stand Out

    Take your home garden to the next level this winterOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Chechnya buries teenager who beheaded French school teacher - rights adviser

    A teenager who beheaded a French school teacher in a killing that convulsed France has been buried in his native Chechnya after his relatives repatriated his body, a local human rights expert said on Monday. Abdullakh Anzorov, an 18-year-old male born in Muslim-majority Chechnya, was shot dead in October by French police after slaying middle school teacher Samuel Paty in a suburb of Paris. Anzorov had wanted to punish Paty for showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad to pupils in a lesson about freedom of expression.

  • Shark attack victim swam to shore and walked 300m in 'remarkable' survival story

    An Australian man swam to shore and walked 300 metres to get help after suffering “extraordinary” injuries in a shark attack, in a story of survival paramedics have described as “remarkable”. The 29-year-old man was badly bitten by the shark while surfing in D’Estrees Bay off Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Paramedic Michael Rushby said that the surfer had “serious” lacerations on his back, backside and leg “consistent with quite a large shark bite”. Mr Rushby said it was “remarkable” that the man had managed to swim to shore and walk to the car park to get help. “He told me he swam back to the beach by himself… then he had to walk 300 metres to the carpark where he was able to get some help from bystanders. With the extent of his injuries, this was quite remarkable.” An off-duty paramedic who was nearby rushed to the beach in his own car to treat the victim, who received further treatment at the scene from Mr Rusby and another paramedic who came by ambulance before being taken to Flinders Medical Centre. “We stabilised him on the side of the road, treated his injuries and managed his pain,” Mr Rushby said. “The young man sustained serious lacerations and this was to his back, his backside and his thigh. These injuries were consistent with quite a large shark bite.” The surfer wrote a note describing his experience and thanking the paramedics and medical staff who saved him, which has been shared on social media. “I was sitting on my board when I felt a hit on my left side,” he wrote. “It was like being hit by a truck. “It bit me around my back, buttock and elbow, and took a chunk out of my board. I got a glimpse of the shark as it let go and disappeared.” Mr Rushby said that despite his injuries the man remained conscious and spoke with the paramedics as they treated him. “He was able to hold a conversation from the time I met him to the time I handed him over. He was doing well, he was able to recall the event, and was able to hold a conversation which was good and reassuring.” In hospital, the shark attack victim said he was “incredibly lucky” and “optimistic” that he would “make a full recovery”. Eight people have been killed in shark attacks in Australia this year, a sharp increase on the two fatal attacks in the previous three years combined. Climate change has been identified as a possible factor for increased shark activity. While great white sharks are not dependent on water temperature, most of the species they hunt are, and as their prey migrates closer to shore, the great whites follow. Daryl McPhee, Associate Professor of Environmental Science at Bond University, told The New Daily after the most recent fatal attack that increasing human marine activity was also a factor.

  • AP FACT CHECK: Trump floods rally with audacious falsehoods

    President Donald Trump flooded his first postelection political rally with debunked conspiracy theories and audacious falsehoods Saturday as he claimed victory in an election he decisively lost. TRUMP on the now-settled presidential contest: “We’re winning this election.”

  • Thousands of anti-Lukashenko protesters march in Belarus, hundreds detained

    Thousands of demonstrators marched in the Belarus capital Minsk and elsewhere on Sunday as weekly protests demanding the resignation of veteran President Alexander Lukashenko continued, prompting police to detain more than 300 people. Belarus, a country of 9.5 million that Russia sees as a security buffer against NATO, has been rocked by mass protests since an Aug. 9 presidential election which Lukashenko said he won. Lukashenko, who has been in power for 26 years, has shrugged off the scale of protests, saying they are sponsored by the West, and shown little signs of willingness to start a dialogue with the opposition.

  • Missing Texas man found dead of suspected mountain lion attack

    The body of the 28-year-old man was found in a nearby wooded area after being reported missing Thursday.

  • Giant continental dormice spotted in England as conservationists warn they could harm native species

    To a passer-by, the fluffy, cartoonish creature on the floor could have been a cuddly toy dropped by a child on a trip to the New Forest National Park. However, to those with a knowledge of rodents, the animal which has been sighted in the park for the first time is a European dormouse which could be breeding in Britain. This year, wildlife experts have spotted the Garden Dormouse in Derbyshire and the New Forest, sparking concerns that it has been deliberately released. They are usually found in France, Spain and Italy. Unlike our native hazel dormice, this species is extremely hardy and carnivorous. While our small, honey-coloured native species prefers to feast on nuts and berries, the continental invader is predatory, eating the young of other rodents and small birds. There are fears if the species started breeding in large numbers, they could pose a threat to our native animals. Government sources say they are risk assessing the rodent, but it is not known to be rapidly breeding in the UK and is not thought to be a significant risk at this time.

  • Trump is reportedly planning a made-for-TV exit on Air Force One from the White House to a rally on Inauguration Day, hoping to pull viewers from Biden

    Trump is reportedly considering breaking democratic tradition by boycotting Joe Biden's inauguration and staging a rally instead.

  • Chinese probe orbiting moon with Earth-bound samples

    A Chinese probe was orbiting the moon on Monday in preparation for the returning of samples of the lunar surface to Earth for the first time in almost 45 years. The ascent module of the Chang’e 5 spacecraft transferred a container with 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of samples after docking with the robot spacecraft on Sunday and was then cut free. The orbiter and reentry vehicle will circle the moon for another week awaiting a narrow time window to make the roughly three-day, 383,000-kilometer (238,000-mile) journey back to Earth.

  • The sanitation worker who found the dead body of a Houston influencer described the moment he discovered her

    The man who found the body of Alexis Sharkey said he can't stop thinking about the moment he discovered the deceased 26-year-old in Houston.

  • 'Thanks Kelly Loeffler, I think we got the message': Fox News mocks Georgia senator for repeating herself during debate

    Loeffler's catchphrases included "Radical liberal Raphael Warnock," "I lived the American dream," and "President Trump has every right to."