Deadline Hollywood reports: Phylicia Rashad, who played Bill Cosby’s TV wife for 12 years on two different hit shows, spoke out on Wednesday shortly after the comedian’s sexual assault conviction was overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The news came as an unwelcome shock to many in Hollywood, but Rashad was overjoyed. “FINALLY!!!!” she wrote on Twitter. “A terrible wrong …

Gothamist reports: The head of the non-profit, non-partisan group that created the software used by the city Board of Elections to carry out the ranked-choice voting tabulation process said offers to help with a smooth ranked-choice counting process were ignored. The BOE’s first tabulation of in-person votes (including early voting and on Primary Day) led to sheer chaos on Tuesday …

The Tampa Bay Times reports: In a rebuke to 157 voting members of the Florida Legislature, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday night vetoed a measure that would have paved the way for tens of thousands of juveniles to get their criminal records erased after completing a behavioral program. The veto came as a shock to many lawmakers, who supported the …

The New York Times reports: The work of understanding Jan. 6 has been hard enough without this barrage of disinformation and, hoping to get to the bottom of the riot, The Times’s Visual Investigations team spent several months reviewing thousands of videos, many filmed by the rioters themselves and since deleted from social media. We filed motions to unseal police …

The New York Times reports: A day after New York City’s Board of Elections retracted a tabulation of ranked-choice preferences, throwing the primary contest into chaos, the board on Wednesday released a fresh tally of ranked-choice preferences among those Democrats who voted in person last Tuesday or during the early voting period. The tally showed Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough …

Yahoo News reports: Former President Donald Trump is rejecting pleas from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to postpone a campaign-style rally this weekend some 200 miles from the Miami suburb where an international search-and-rescue mission is excavating bodies from the site of a collapsed seaside condominium. DeSantis’s office has “made a direct plea” to the former president’s team, calling on it …

The New York Daily News reports: Mayor de Blasio pleaded for New Yorkers to reduce their power use on Wednesday afternoon as the city baked in temperatures approaching triple digits. “We need people to take immediate action,” the mayor said in a news conference after the mercury spiked to 98 degrees at LaGuardia Airport, setting an all-time record for the …

The Hill reports: CNN’s Jim Acosta was booed by a crowd gathered at the southern border during former President Trump’s visit there on Wednesday after he asked Trump to apologize for the Jan. 6 insurrection. “Will you apologize about Jan. 6?” Acosta shouted to Trump after he concluded his speech near a section of border wall. “Nooooo,” several people in …

From the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: COVID-19 is still killing people in Wisconsin — nearly all of them people who have not been fully vaccinated, state health officials say. And that’s why Ron Johnson’s news conference Monday was so disheartening. The Republican senator highlighted five people who said they had serious side effects from the life-saving COVID-19 vaccines. …

NPR reports: In a largely party-line vote, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved legislation on Wednesday to create a select committee to launch a new inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. With a larger share of Republicans voting against the plan, it marks the latest turn in a partisan fight to investigate the riot. As invited …

The New York Times reports: Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense for Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George W. Bush, who presided over America’s Cold War strategies in the 1970s and, in the new world of terrorism decades later, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, died on Tuesday at his home in Taos, N.M. He was 88. The cause …

Washington’s ABC News affiliate reports: Zvonimir Jurlina, of Farmington, New York is charged with destruction of property in a special jurisdiction and committing an act of physical violence on Capitol grounds. According to court documents filed Monday, Jurlina allegedly posted multiple videos to his “Zykotik” YouTube page appearing to show him participating in the Capitol riot. Investigators say those videos …

Raw Story reports: Gabriel Brown, a YouTuber and Proud Boy who has rallied at Charlottesville and other fascist scenes, was arrested by the FBI today on charges of violence, property destruction and disorderly conduct at the January 6 riot. Brown, 38, of the village of Bayville on Long Island, NY, “kicked and/or stomped on media equipment and verbally encouraged others …

The Texas Tribune reports: Former President Donald Trump is visiting Texas on Wednesday to tour parts of the U.S.-Mexico border, where Gov. Greg Abbott has vowed to build a border wall — picking up on the unfulfilled promise first pushed by Trump during his presidential campaign. Trump and Abbott, both Republicans, will hold a border security briefing with state and …

The Detroit Free Press reports: A U.S. Army veteran from Macomb County who wore clothing associated with the extremist “Boogaloo” movement was arrested Wednesday and charged with breaking into the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection. Steven Thurlow, 50, a gunsmith from St. Clair Shores, is the 10th person from Michigan charged during a broader crackdown on the Jan. …

Reuters reports: A pledge by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ban LGBT conversion therapy has been delayed until at least September, after an attempt to recall the Senate over the summer to deal with the bill failed late on Tuesday. Canada’s Senate, or upper chamber, held special sittings earlier this week to deal with a raft of bills passed …

The Hill reports: Former President Trump is the fourth lowest ranking U.S. president, according to C-SPAN’s 2021 President Historians Survey. C-SPAN’s survey, first conducted in 2000, includes 142 historians, professors and other professional observers of the presidency who gave all former presidents a score from one to 10 in multiple different leadership characteristics. The results are then averaged to tabulate …

The Associated Press reports: Pennsylvania’s highest court has overturned comedian Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction. The court said Wednesday that they found an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. The 83-year-old Cosby has served more than two years at a state prison near Philadelphia. He has vowed to serve his full 10-year sentence …

Mediaite reports: Rep. Matt Gaetz asked an Inspector General to investigate claims made by Fox News Tucker Carlson that the National Security Agency is spying upon him in an attempt to take him off the air. “The most-watched cable news host has been stating for the last several nights that the NSA has been monitoring his communications,” Gaetz stated, “And …

Via email from hate group leader Brian Brown: Dear Joe — Sometimes I feel like grabbing my head and pulling out my hair. That’s what I feel like right now as I watch all the challenges to our beliefs and values that are coming, one after the other. One, the deadly Equality Act legislation that would impose so much of …