The Birmingham Herald reports: U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks said he was not involved in the planning of the Jan. 6 “Save America” rally at the Capitol where he made a speech shortly before rioters breached the building. In a phone interview Monday, the Huntsville congressman and 2022 U.S. Senate candidate denied a Rolling Stone report that he or his top …

Deadline reports: Addressing “the recent debate around our company,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave not an inch on Monday, saying, “what we are seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture.” Kicking off a conference call with financial analysts after quarterly earnings, Zuckerberg addressed the elephant in the room — weeks of devastating …

The Hill reports: Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin on Monday announced plans to build a commercial space station for business and travel in low-Earth orbit. Blue Origin said it is working with Boeing and Sierra Space on a commercially developed, owned and operated space station known as “Orbital Reef.” The company said the space station will be operated as …

From the Miami Herald editorial board: Nothing can hide Florida’s descent into Crazyville. Not the “Don’t Tread on Florida” alligator signs held by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ supporters at his latest COVID-19 policy proposal announcement. Not the state’s new Ivy League-educated surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who refused — refused! — to wear a mask when he met with state Sen. …

The Texas Tribune reports: Texas’ transgender student athletes will be restricted from playing on K-12 school sports teams that align with their gender identity under a bill Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Monday. House Bill 25, authored by state Rep. Valoree Swanson, R-Spring, will require student athletes who compete in interscholastic competition to play on sports teams that correspond …

Canada’s Global News reports: Former Saskatoon PPC candidate and well-known critic of COVID-19 restrictions Mark Friesen is in a Toronto hospital with COVID-19, one of his supporters said in a video. The video is titled “How Long Will Canada Remain Docile?” and was posted on Rumble. “Many of you are following what is happening with Mark Friesen. I love this …

The Associated Press reports: Children under 18 and people from dozens of countries with a shortage of vaccines will be exempt from new rules that will require most travelers to the United States be vaccinated against COVID-19, the Biden administration announced Monday. The government will require airlines to collect contact information on passengers regardless of whether they have been vaccinated …

The Hill reports: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has been fined a third time for refusing to wear a mask on the House floor, the House Ethics Committee disclosed on Monday. Greene has now racked up a total of $5,500 worth of mask fines this year. Under the rules that Democrats established in January to enforce compliance with the mask …

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports: A New York man was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison Monday for assaulting a Sesame Place employee who asked him and his girlfriend to don face masks at the park in August 2020, an attack that left the teen worker with a fractured jaw. Bucks County President Judge Wallace H. Bateman chastised Troy …

The New York Times reports: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey stepped back on Monday from a threat to expel 10 Western ambassadors, averting a diplomatic storm that analysts and diplomats were warning would bring economic disaster upon Turkey and a lasting rupture in the NATO alliance. In what seemed to be a calculated move, the 10 embassies involved issued …

Fox News reports: With hospitals in Colorado denying unvaccinated patients organ transplants, more people are looking to Texas in the hopes of getting the potentially life-saving procedures. “Here in Texas, vaccines remain voluntary and never forced,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office told Fox News in a statement. “Anyone being denied critical, life-saving organ transplants is welcome here in Texas, where …

USA Today reports: Long-term COVID-19 side effects could include memory loss and other cognitive dysfunctions commonly labeled as “brain fog,” according to a study released that examined 740 patients in the Mount Sinai Health System. The study, which was published Friday in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA Network Open, analyzed patients who contracted COVID-19, not people who only received the …

The BBC reports: Councils should be able to stop anti-vaccination protesters from demonstrating outside schools by using exclusion orders, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said. Sir Keir said it was “sickening” that protesters were spreading “dangerous misinformation” to children. He urged the government to “urgently” update the law so exclusion zones can be rapidly set up around school gates. …

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: The fall play at a high school in southwest Ohio was canceled suddenly, reportedly because of concerns that a character in the play was gay. Students at Hillsboro High School still were in rehearsals for “She Kills Monsters,” which was scheduled to open in less than a month at the school’s new auditorium, WCPO Channel …

The New York Daily News reports: The push for an AirTrain to LaGuardia might be dead — but talk of a new subway line to the airport from Astoria is gaining steam. Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens), whose political base is Astoria, backs extending the N/W train to LaGuardia by building new subway tracks above the Grand Central Parkway — which …

Reuters reports: Tesla Inc on Monday (Oct 25) neared US$1 trillion (S$1.35 trillion) in market capitalisation as the company founded by Elon Musk received its biggest-ever order – 100,000 electric rental cars for Hertz. Tesla shares were up 7.5% at US$978, hitting a new record high Monday, following the order. Shares were also buoyed by news of the company’s Model …

ABC News reports: Jury selection is scheduled to get underway on Monday in the high-profile civil case in the U.S. district court in Charlottesville against organizers and certain participants of the “Unite the Right” rally. Nine people injured over the two-day event are accusing promoters of exhorting followers to “defend the South and Western civilization” from non-white people and their …

The Daily Beast reports: It’s only been three days since Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, but the Trump family has never been known to hang around when there’s a tawdry buck to make. The oldest Trump son, Donald Jr., is hawking $27.99 T-shirts on his official site with the mocking slogan: “Guns don’t kill people, …

Media Matters reports: After an anti-vaccine mob attempted to storm into the Barclays Center basketball arena in New York over the weekend in support of benched Brooklyn Nets player Kyrie Irving for his refusal to take the COVID-19 vaccines, Fox News gave the story positive coverage Monday morning — despite the obvious fact that such militant defiance of pandemic health …

NPR reports: Moderna says a study in kids 6 to 11 found two doses of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine given 28 days apart produced a strong antibody response. The study, conducted in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health, used shots containing a 50 microgram dose of the vaccine, half the dose of the Moderna shots authorized for adults. More …