Parts of Louisiana hit hard by Hurricane Laura have been left fighting off hordes of mosquitoes so vast they are killing farm animals by biting them in huge numbers. The animals are dying from the sheer number of bites, which leave them anemic and bleeding under the skin, as well as from the exhaustion caused by constantly moving to avoid the insects. According to Dr Craig Fontenot, a vet in the city of Ville Platte, the “vicious little suckers”, pushed out of marshes by the huge storm, have already claimed some 300-400 cattle, as well as a few horses.

AS PROTESTS AGAINST police violence spread to every state in the U.S. and dramatic images flooded in from cities across the country, President Donald Trump and his attorney general spun an ominous story of opportunistic leftists exploiting a national trauma to sow chaos and disorder. They were the anti-fascists known as “antifa”, and according to the administration they were domestic terrorists who would be policed accordingly. But while the White House beat the drum for a crackdown on a leaderless movement on the left, law enforcement offices across the country were sharing detailed reports of far-right extremists seeking to attack the protesters and police during the country’s historic demonstrations, a trove of newly leaked documents reveals.

A "shambolic" and "negligent" drug courier who was found with hundreds of kilograms of crystal methamphetamine in his van after hitting two police cars in Sydney's north-west may have collected the drugs after the crash, a court has been told. Simon Tu, 28, was behind the wheel of a white Toyota HiAce van on the morning of July 22, 2019, when he drifted to the wrong side of the road and crashed into two cars parked outside Eastwood police station, causing extensive damage. He did not stop to provide his details. About an hour later police saw a damaged van driving along in Ryde and pulled it over. A nervous, shaking and fidgeting Tu was asked what happened at Eastwood and he claimed he had a microsleep. He said he had picked up the cardboard boxes he was carting from Pizza Hut in Eastwood about an hour earlier. Police opened up one of the boxes and found a large amount of crystal methamphetamine, also known as ice. In total, Tu was transporting 260.47 kilograms of the substance, with a purity ranging from 71.5 to 80.5 per cent. "Someone isn't going to be happy," one of the officers told Tu. "You know how much it's worth?" "A lot," he responded. "What's the go?" the officer said. "You owe people money, or just wanted to make some quick cash?" "Something like that," he said. On Thursday, Tu's barrister Phillip Boulten, SC, described his client's actions as "shambolic and negligent". "His driving is what gave it all away, and his role was to drive, so in some sense it was a hopeless execution of the task he was asked to perform," Mr Boulten said. "At or about the time he’s about to commit a very serious offence, or is committing it, he drove into a car outside a police station." District Court Judge Penelope Hock added: "Shambolic is a good word." Mr Boulten said it was "not entirely clear" that his client had the drugs on board at the time of the collision, and said it was "theoretically possible" he picked them up afterwards. Judge Hock asked if it was being suggested that "after he has an accident outside the police station and damages two police cars, he then goes off to collect an enormous quantity of prohibited drugs". "I think I could be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt [that he had the drugs on board]," Judge Hock said. Mr Boulten said his client, who has no prior convictions and owed people money commercially and personally, must have done what he did "for pressing financial reasons, to make some quick cash, or to pay someone off". "No one would do it as a favour," he said. Mr Boulten said there is no evidence his client was living the lifestyle of someone who was a "significant player in the market". He said Tu seems to be someone who was "useful to those who were true engineers of the scheme ... somebody who was asked to undertake a very, very risky job". Tu pleaded guilty this year to supplying a large commercial quantity of a prohibited drug. Two lesser charges of negligent driving and failing to give particulars will be taken into account when he is sentenced. He has refused to tell police where the drugs came from or who told him to collect them. Prosecutor Jason Lee said the offence involved an "enormous quantity" of drugs. He asked Judge Hock to find the offence falls in the mid-range of seriousness. Tu will be sentenced on Friday.

One obvious answer is stress. From Covid-induced nightmares to “doomsurfing” to “coronaphobia”, it’s no secret that pandemic-related anxiety is affecting our collective mental health. That stress, in turn, leads to clenching and grinding, which can damage the teeth.

Before his secret execution Navid Afkari, 27, was subjected to a shocking catalogue of human rights violations and crimes, including enforced disappearance; torture and other ill-treatment, leading to forced “confessions”; and denial of access to a lawyer and other fair trial guarantees. “This young man desperately sought help in court to receive a fair trial and prove his innocence. Leaked voice recordings of him in court expose how his pleas for judges to investigate his torture complaints and bring another detainee who had witnessed his torture to testify were unlawfully and cruelly ignored,” said Diana Eltahawy. Before his execution, another voice recording from inside prison was released, in which he said: “If I am executed, I want you to know that an innocent person, even though he tried and fought with all his strength to be heard, was executed.”

For the better part of my adult life, every move I’ve made, every relationship I’ve formed, has been rooted in the napalm toxic soil of…

Now, one of the most plausible mechanisms for quantum collapse—gravity—has suffered a setback.

Gov. Brian Kemp and Atlanta rapper Killer Mike tried to dial down the uproar over their meeting with a joint radio appearance that featured the conservative Republican trading compliments with the progressive activist.

Separately at least one preserved carcass of a cave bear cub found on the mainland of Yakutia, with scientists hopeful of obtaining its DNA.

Last summer, oil and gas-industry groups were lobbying to overturn federal rules on leaks of natural gas, a major contributor to climate change. Their message: The companies had emissions under control. In private, the lobbyists were saying something very different. At a discussion convened last year by the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a group that represents energy companies, participants worried that producers were intentionally flaring, or burning off, far too much natural gas, threatening the industry’s image, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times. “We’re just flaring a tremendous amount of gas,” said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, at the June 2019 gathering, held in Colorado Springs. “This pesky natural gas,” he said. “The value of it is very minimal,” particularly to companies drilling mainly for oil. A well can produce both oil and natural gas, but oil commands far higher prices. Flaring it is an inexpensive way of getting rid of the gas.

The Democratic candidate who was set to face Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican House candidate with a history of incendiary and conspiracy-spreading comments, dropped out of the race on Friday.

Jamie Oswald doesn't like President Donald Trump's tone, his temper or his tweets, but she hasn't ruled out voting for him this fall.

Officials said there are 16 wildfires burning in Oregon right now, and eight of those fires may continue to burn into the winter. More than one million acres of land has burned so far, Oregon Governor Kate Brown said. The governor was joined by fire officials in giving an update on the wildfires burning throughout the state. on Friday, she added that 40,000 Oregonians have been evacuated, and 500,000 are in evacuation zones.

Memphis became the latest football program to pause team activities after a COVID-19 outbreak on Friday, with the program announcing “a number of individuals connected with the Tigers’ football program had tested positive” for the virus. That number is at least 20 people within the program, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, with another group of at least 20 in quarantine due to contact tracing. The program indicated that contact tracing had found many of the cases to be linked to social events outside of football activities. There are reportedly no serious cases, though the status of the Tigers’ next game against Houston, scheduled for Sept. 18, is apparently up in the air.

In 2016, a WFP-backed candidate unseated Rhode Island’s House majority leader. Insurgents have been making progress ever since.

Anti-porn SWERF Gail Dines has written countless half-truths about porn and sex workers' rights, so why did the Boston Globe give her a platform?

Authorities in Oregon are pleading with the public to only trust and share information verified by official sources about the unprecedented wildfires sweeping the state. The pleas come as law enforcement agencies described 911 dispatchers being overrun with calls about a false online rumor that "Antifa" members had been arrested for setting the fires — a claim promoted by the anonymous account behind the QAnon conspiracy theories.

The coronavirus pandemic has taken a harsh toll on the mental health of young Americans, according to a new poll that finds adults under 35 especially likely to report negative feelings or experience physical or emotional symptoms associated with stress and anxiety. A majority of Americans ages 18 through 34 — 56% — say they have at least sometimes felt isolated in the past month, compared with about 4 in 10 older Americans, according to the latest COVID Response Tracking Study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Twenty-five percent of young adults rate their mental health as fair or poor, compared with 13% of older adults, while 56% of older adults say their mental health is excellent or very good, compared with just 39% of young adults.

A federal appeals court has upheld a law denying voting rights to former felons in Florida if they have not paid off their court fees, even if they cannot afford to. Opponents of the law argue it creates a “pay to vote” system akin to the poll taxes outlawed in the 24th constitutional amendment. But in a 6-4 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit found that the requirement is not a tax and is constitutional. Like in many states, felons are not able to vote in Florida, which is considered a crucial swing state in the upcoming 2020 election. But in 2018, the people of Florida voted in a referendum to amend the state constitution and restore voting rights to former felons. Since then at least 85,000 people have applied to have their voting rights reinstated. Advocates say the total number of people whose rights are affected by the case is about 750,000. In May 2019, the Republican-controlled Florida legislature passed Senate Bill 7066. The legislation only restores voting rights to former felons who complete all “terms of service,” which are defined to include paying off all financial obligations. These obligations include court fees, fines, and restitution orders that can run into the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Some applicants then sued. They won an initial victory when a district court issued a preliminary injunction. On Friday, the 11th Circuit overruled that decision. In Florida, there are virtually no exemptions for people unable to pay court fees. Even hiring a public defender, a constitutionally-required service set aside for people without means, comes with a $50 application fee. In one county, the fees for each defendant who is represented by a public defender total at least $700.

A girls’ night at the Georgetown home of a prominent journalist, a lobbying push for soft-focus features in glossy magazines, a professional makeup artist and invitations to awards dinners and prestige panels. The smorgasbord that expensive consultants laid out for Seema Verma, President Trump’s Medicare chief and a new arrival in town, proved to be enticing. The tab — $6 million in less than two years — fell to the federal taxpayer. A yearlong investigation by congressional Democrats of Ms. Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, exposed not only a shadow operation to polish Ms. Verma’s personal brand but also the underside of life in Washington, where the personal and the professional often blend into a mélange of questionable interactions. Democrats said the report expanded on the findings of an audit in July by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services that criticized Ms. Verma’s use of outside consultants to perform “inherently governmental functions,” including strategic communications. Ms. Verma runs an agency with a $1 trillion budget and 4,000 federal employees, overseeing federal health care programs used by 145 million poor and older Americans. The report released on Thursday outlined in detail the efforts of a team of handpicked Republican consultants paid by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as C.M.S., to work on Ms. Verma’s personal image, obtain profiles and coverage from friendly reporters, escort her during travel, write opinion articles and even draft her Twitter posts. One of the consultants, Marcus Barlow, had served as Ms. Verma’s spokesman when she ran a consulting firm in Indiana. But the White House, objecting to Mr. Barlow’s disparaging statements about Mr. Trump during his election campaign, reportedly blocked him from the C.M.S. communications director post, the investigation found. So Ms. Verma hired Mr. Barlow on a contract that paid him for full-time work at a rate more than double the $179,700 annual salary he would have been paid as a federal employee.