Politics

Reuters reports: Rapper Kanye West posted a series of tweets late on Monday claiming his wife was trying to have him locked up on medical grounds, comparing himself to Nelson Mandela and suggesting the movie “Get Out” was based on his own life. The late night flurry of activity on West’s official Twitter account – the bulk of which was …

The Daily Beast reports: The gunman who shot the husband and son of a federal judge in New Jersey is believed to be a lawyer and men’s rights activist who was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound hours later, two law-enforcement sources told The Daily Beast. Roy Den Hollander was discovered in the upstate New York town of …

Via press release from Notorious RBG: On May 19, I began a course of chemotherapy (gemcitabine) to treat a recurrence of cancer. A periodic scan in February followed by a biopsy revealed lesions on my liver. My recent hospitalizations to remove gall stones and treat an infection were unrelated to this recurrence. Immunotherapy first essayed proved unsuccessful. The chemotherapy course, …

The Detroit Free Press reports: When U.S. Rep. Justin Amash ended his exploratory bid for the presidency, Libertarian activists held out hope he would run for re-election to his seat in the U.S. House, where he is the first and only Libertarian to serve in Congress. It seems they are about to be disappointed. A top Amash aide reiterated this …

USA Today reports: The Supreme Court refused Thursday to let Florida felons who have completed their sentences vote in an upcoming primary without first paying fees, fines and restitution, as the state requires. Voting rights groups had challenged the requirement as unconstitutional, given that state voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2018 giving hundreds of thousands of felons the right …

USA Today reports: Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a four-time cancer survivor, was released from a Baltimore hospital Wednesday after treatment for a possible infection. Ginsburg, 87, the court’s oldest justice, had experienced fever and chills Monday night and underwent an endoscopic procedure at Johns Hopkins Hospital the following day to clean out a bile duct stent that …

CNN reports: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been taken to the hospital and treated for a possible infection, according to a court spokeswoman. “Justice Ginsburg was admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland early this morning for treatment of a possible infection,” spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said Tuesday. “She was initially evaluated at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. …

The BBC reports: Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite and ex-girlfriend of the late US convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been denied bail in a high-profile sex case. At a hearing via video link, a New York judge said she would remain in custody while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking minors for Epstein. Ms Maxwell, who pleaded not guilty, …

The Guardian reports: Brazil’s government has fired an official at the national space agency Inpe whose department is responsible for satellite monitoring of the Amazon rainforest, just three days after June deforestation data reflected a continued increase in degradation. Lubia Vinhas was the general-coordinator of Brazilian space agency Inpe’s Earth Observation Institute, which is an umbrella for divisions that monitor …

The Indianapolis Star reports: After the Supreme Court of the United States stepped in, Daniel Lewis Lee was executed Tuesday morning by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Lee, the first federal inmate to be executed in 17 years, was pronounced dead at 8:07 a.m. His last words: “You’re killing an innocent man.” Lee, a member …

NBC News reports: The Supreme Court early Tuesday ruled that the first federal executions in 17 years can be carried out. The justices ruled 5-4 hours after a U.S. District Judge preliminary blocked four inmates from being executed. Daniel Lewis Lee was originally scheduled to receive a lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital at 4 p.m. ET Monday, but …

The New York Daily News reports: Federal officials have put special protocols in place for Ghislaine Maxwell while she’s locked up, including giving her paper clothes so she doesn’t suffer the same fate as the man she allegedly enabled, Jeffrey Epstein. The feds took away Maxwell’s clothes and bedsheets once she was in custody. The measures at Metropolitan Detention Center …

NBC News reports: Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump, was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals on the heels of a newspaper photo showing him eating at a Manhattan restaurant weeks after being released from prison into home confinement. Cohen was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a federal jail. His attorney told NBC …

The Korea Herald reports: Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon was found dead on Friday, according to police, in what appears to be one of the country’s highest-profile suicides in recent history. The body of Park, 64, was found at Mount Bukak, hours after he was reported missing. The exact cause of his death remained under investigation. Park’s daughter filed a police …

The Washington Post reports: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suffered a fall at a Maryland country club last month that required an overnight stay in the hospital, a Supreme Court spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday night. The 65-year-old chief justice was taken by ambulance to a hospital after the June 21 incident at the Chevy Chase Club, which was serious enough …

CBS News reports: A growing number of sheriffs in Texas say they are refusing to follow a recent executive order requiring masks in public. Governor Greg Abbott’s mandate aims to slow the spread of coronavirus, as cases in the state soared past 200,000 on Tuesday. Police officials in at least nine counties — including Denton, Houston, Montgomery, Gillespie, Upshur, Kerr, …

NBC News reports: The 538 people who cast the actual votes for president in December as part of the Electoral College are not free agents and must vote as the laws of their states direct, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday. The unanimous decision in the “faithless elector” case was a defeat for advocates of changing the Electoral College, who …

Politico reports: Justin Trudeau is pointing to the threat of fresh U.S. tariffs and the coronavirus pandemic as reasons why he might skip a meeting in Washington next week with President Donald Trump and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador to mark the new continental trade deal. The Canadian prime minister made the comments Friday when asked by a reporter about …

Roll Call reports: Republican senators came out swinging today against a bill passed in the House last week that would make the District of Columbia the 51st state.  Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, was joined by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Steve Daines, R-Mont., who noted a Gallup poll that found a majority of Americans believed Washington should not be a …

The Associated Press reports: Work crews wielding a giant crane, harnesses and power tools wrested an imposing statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson from its concrete pedestal along Richmond, Virginia’s famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday, just hours after the mayor ordered the removal of all Confederate statues from city land. Mayor Levar Stoney’s decree came weeks after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam …