In late July, America was briefly enthralled with “Unsolicited Seeds from China,” which started showing up in mailboxes in all 50 states. These mystery seeds prompted warnings from the USDA, which said people should not plant them, and should instead alert their state agricultural authority and mail them to the USDA or their local officials.  Many Americans heeded this advice. Many more decidedly did not.  According to documents obtained by Motherboard from state departments of agriculture, at least hundreds, perhaps thousands of Americans planted the seeds. 

Over 400,000 motorcycle enthusiasts gathered for the annual rally from Aug. 7-16, and it was reported that social distancing and mask wearing at some of the events was not observed. The rally was officially linked to hundreds of coronavirus cases across more than 10 states and at least one death. But the study that relied on cell phone data to track movements estimates that over 250,000 reported coronavirus cases from August 2 to September 2 are due to the rally – nearly 20% of the national cases during that time period, according to Andrew Friedson, one of the authors of the report.

The ACLU of Georgia this morning has released a report that says a 2019 purge of voters from the state’s registration database improperly removed nearly 200,000 on the grounds that they had moved – when they had not. The report is the work of the Palast Investigative Fund, a New York-based nonprofit headed by Greg Palast, an investigative journalist with a history of looking into state voting purges – dating to Florida in 2003. Of 313,243 voters culled last year, the Palast report alleges that 198,351 were improperly expunged.

Right-wing operative Jacob Wohl, who has a history of spreading conspiracy theories, was kicked off Facebook and Instagram late Monday night.

The Justice Department plans to bring an antitrust case against Google as soon as this month, after Attorney General William P. Barr overruled career lawyers who said they needed more time to build a strong case against one of the world’s wealthiest, most formidable technology companies, according to five people briefed on internal department conversations. Justice Department officials told lawyers involved in the antitrust inquiry into Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, to wrap up their work by the end of September, according to three of the people. Most of the 40-odd lawyers who had been working on the investigation opposed the deadline. Some said they would not sign the complaint, and several of them left the case this summer. Some argued this summer in a memo that ran hundreds of pages that they could bring a strong case but needed more time, according to people who described the document. Disagreement persisted among the team over how broad the complaint should be and what Google could do to resolve the problems the government uncovered. The lawyers viewed the deadline as arbitrary. While there were disagreements about tactics, career lawyers also expressed concerns that Mr. Barr wanted to announce the case in September to take credit for action against a powerful tech company under the Trump administration. But Mr. Barr felt that the department had moved too slowly and that the deadline was not unreasonable, according to a senior Justice Department official. A former telecom industry executive who argued an antitrust matter before the Supreme Court, Mr. Barr has shown a deep interest in the Google investigation. He has requested regular briefings on the department’s case, taking thick binders of information about it on trips and vacations and returning with ideas and notes.

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren announced Thursday that the officers involved in the death of Daniel Prude have been suspended. “I am suspending the officers in question today against council’s advice, and I urge the attorney general to complete her investigation,” Mayor Warren said. “I understand that the union may sue the city for this, they shall feel free to do so — I have been sued before.” In total, seven Rochester police officers are suspended with pay: Officers Mark Vaughn, Troy Taladay, Paul Ricotta, Francisco Santiago, Andrew Specksgoor, Josiah Harris, and Sgt. Michael Magri. Prude, a 41-year-old Black man from Chicago, died after an encounter with Rochester police back in March, but news of the incident just came to light Wednesday, and now the case is being investigated by the New York State Attorney General’s Office.

Two Missouri men were arrested on firearm charges after a tipster warned law enforcement the pair were traveling to Kenosha, Wisconsin, with assault-style weapons, according to court documents. Michael M. Karmo, 40, and Cody E. Smith, 33, were arrested at a hotel near Kenosha on Tuesday and charged with illegal possession of firearms, the Department of Justice announced Thursday. According to the criminal complaint against them, they were found with a major cache of firearms and weapons in their vehicle and hotel room that included an AR-15, a shotgun, handguns, a dagger, a saw and magazines.

A Texas assistant attorney general sent dozens of tweets over the past several months threatening violence against progressives, spouting racist and transphobic rhetoric, casting doubt over the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic and sharing QAnon conspiracy theories. On Thursday, he lost his job with the state agency after national media reported on his social media activities. Nick Moutos, whose racist tweets were reported Thursday morning by Media Matters, threatened Black Lives Matter protesters and has regularly referred to the organizers as “terrorists.” He called Islam a “virus” and trans people an “abomination.” “As of today, this individual no longer works for the Office of the Attorney General,” Kayleigh Date, spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, told The Texas Tribune.

The NRA's former second-in-command has a message for the New York attorney general who has launched an investigation into the powerful gun lobby. It's worse than she thinks. "She's only at the tip of the iceberg," said Joshua Powell, former chief of staff to Wayne LaPierre, the longtime head of the National Rifle Association. "When she sees below the water line, what she'll find is decades of fraud, corruption, no-bid contracts to the tune of not tens of millions but hundreds of millions of dollars. It's far worse than, in my opinion, what she has on paper at this point." New York Attorney General Letitia James last month filed a lawsuit demanding the dissolution of the NRA, the nation's leading gun-rights organization and an influential ally of President Donald Trump. She also sued four current or former NRA executives, including Powell, seeking millions in restitution. 

The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected a submission from Phoenix Biotechnology Inc. to market oleandrin as a dietary supplement ingredient, citing "significant concerns" about the safety evidence the company presented. Last month, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who recently joined the board of Phoenix Biotechnology and has a financial stake in the company, said he had participated in a July meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump regarding the use of oleandrin as a potential therapeutic for the coronavirus. The extract comes from the Nerium oleander plant; the raw oleander plant is highly toxic and consuming it can be fatal. There are no peer-reviewed, published studies on the impact of oleandrin on Covid-19, and there's no public evidence it has been studied in patients with Covid-19.

Amazon’s top reviewers in the UK appear to have engaged in fraud, leaving thousands of five-star ratings in exchange for money or free products. The company took down 20,000 product reviews following an investigation by the Financial Times. Justin Fryer, the number one Amazon reviewer in the UK, left a five-star rating once every four hours on average in August, according to the FT’s analysis. Many of these reviews were for products from random Chinese companies. Fryer then seems to have resold the products on eBay. Scams like these typically start on social networks and messaging apps such as Telegram, where companies can meet potential reviewers. Once the connection is made, the reviewer chooses a free product, then waits a few days to write a five-star review. After the review is posted, they get a full refund, and, at times, an extra payment.

Photos of members of an anti-government group carrying long guns, a pipe wrench, and an inert rocket launcher into a Subway restaurant in Raleigh went viral in May. Now, one of those people has been accused of trying to sell weapons to undercover federal agents. Benjamin Ryan Teeter, 22, from Hampstead, NC, and Michael Robert Solomon, 30, from New Brighton, Minn., were arrested and charged with conspiring and attempting to provide material support to Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group.

He's shaming us," said the man, who identified himself only as David (a police spokesperson declined to provide their full names)."Because we can't wear a mask, we're being discriminated against." His wife went a step further, suggesting that they were specifically targeted because they are white. "If we were fucking Black, I can guarantee you that guy would never come out and tell us put a mask on," she huffed to a Gothamist reporter. “Right, because Black Lives Matter,” the husband agreed.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to overwrite key parts of the Brexit withdrawal deal he agreed with the EU last year as he insists that leaving all existing trade arrangements without a fresh deal at the end of the year would be a "good outcome" for Britain. The Financial Times reported on Monday that the prime minister intends to "eliminate the legal force of parts of the withdrawal agreement," citing three sources familiar with the plan. The government will on Wednesday table legislation called Internal Market Bill which if passed would effectively overwrite sections of the Withdrawal Agreement relating to Northern Ireland's relationship with Great Britain. Johnson's official spokesman confirmed on Monday that the government will move to "clarify specific elements" of the deal. "We are taking limited and reasonable steps to clarify specific elements of the Northern Ireland Protocol in domestic law to remove any ambiguity and to ensure the government is always able to deliver on its commitments to the people of Northern Ireland," the spokesman said.

Trump fancied several of the pieces in the U.S. ambassador’s historic residence in Paris, where he was staying, and on a whim had them removed and loaded onto Air Force One, according to people familiar with the matter. The works -- a portrait, a bust, and a set of silver figurines -- were brought back to the White House. The decision to cancel Trump’s visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery outside Paris is under new scrutiny after the Atlantic magazine on Thursday published a bombshell report that Trump belittled the American servicemen buried there, part of a broader history of disparaging certain people who’ve served in the military. Trump has vehemently denied making the comments about “suckers” and “losers” in the armed forces. Never previously reported is Trump’s spur-of-the-moment art caper before leaving the ambassador’s residence.

Leading Ukrainian religious figure Patriarch Filaret has contracted coronavirus, after blaming gay people for the disease. The 91-year-old, who is the Patriarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kiev Patriarchate, is currently in a stable condition being treated in hospital, with Ukrainian website 11.2 international also reporting he has pneumonia. Filaret’s church, which is said to have more than 15 million followers among Ukraine’s 42 million population, confirmed the COVID-19 diagnosis in a Facebook post. “We inform that during planned testing, His Holiness Patriarch Filaret of Kiev and All Rus-Ukraine tested positive for COVID-19,” the statement said. “Now His Holiness Bishop is undergoing treatment at a hospital.”

The US Postal Service has become an unlikely flashpoint of the upcoming elections due to President Donald Trump's refusal to fund the cash-strapped agency, despite the outsized role it will play as millions of Americans turn to mail-in voting during the pandemic. But even as Trump continues to make false claims attempting to link mail-in voting to fraud, the USPS has been working on new ways to make elections more secure and transparent, even if voters opt for mail-in ballots. The US Patent and Trade Office made a patent filing from the USPS public last week, Forbes first reported on Friday, that would utilize blockchain technology to help verify voters' identities, allow them to cast ballots online, and record results via a tamper-proof ledger.

Working America, an AFL-CIO community-based political program, finds ‘persuadable’ voters are open to at least some progressive policies. TL;DR: Many working class Trump voters thought he'd actually help make healthcare more affordable.

The share of 18- to 29-year-olds living with their parents has become a majority since U.S. coronavirus cases began spreading early this year.

LONDON -- A key opposition leader in Belarus has disappeared in the country's capital, Minsk, after another weekend of mass protests against the rule of embattled President Alexander Lukashenko. Maria Kolesnikova, the central opposition figure inside the Eastern European nation, was seen being bundled into a vehicle by men in plainclothes, according to independent Belarusian news outlet Tut.By. Kolesnikova’s press representative, Gleb German, confirmed to ABC News that their team had had "no contact" with her Monday. Her whereabouts, along with that of two other leaders involved in the opposition's Coordination Council, Anton Ronenkov and Ivan Kravstov, are unknown and their lawyers are looking for them, according to German.