IN A MOVE that reform advocates call an alarming turn away from the effort to reduce the role of bail in the criminal justice system — a position her own campaign embraced two years ago — Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins’s office is seeking a dramatic increase in bail for a defendant after learning that the Massachusetts Bail Fund was prepared to post the money to free him. Barry Twomey, a 58-year-old homeless Boston man, was arraigned on July 7 on armed robbery charges after he was arrested on July 2 at the South Bay Mall, where two robberies occurred. Prosecutors asked that he be held on $5,000 bail, an amount Boston Municipal Court Judge Eleanor Sinnott agreed to. But when the district attorney’s office learned that the Bail Fund planned to post the bail, it filed a request on August 14 for a new hearing at which prosecutors want the court to order a 10-fold increase in Twomey’s bail to $50,000.

I know I’ve written about this before, but I just love it so much, and this video is so good that I’m going to do it again. Reader Sam was messing around with the same 3D-printed DSLR mod that I wrote about in 2018, but instead of using it to massively zoom in on stuff like the moon, he just used it to take some very nice portraits. Oh, and then print them! Not using the Game Boy printer, but getting them professionally done, which as you’ll see below looks pretty great up on the wall.

The vast majority of Republican voters approve of the U.S. economy’s state and how the government handled the coronavirus, and more than half say the level of deaths has been “acceptable,” a new poll shows.

40 percent of the sorting machines had been disconnected by Tuesday, when the Postal Service announced it would pause controversial changes until after the November election.

To many in the city, Monday's charges against Sen. Louise Lucas and other officials and activists may be the most dramatic example yet.

Finland’s two-year test of universal basic income has concluded that it doesn't seem to disincentivise working, and improves recipients’ mental and financial well-being

London office vacancy rates are forecast to hit their highest level since the financial crisis next year as companies shrink their headquarters in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.In the City

(WASHINGTON, DC) — Today, the NAACP filed suit in the United States District Court of Washington, D.C. against the United States Postal Service and Postmaster General of the United States Postal Service, Louis Dejoy. The lawsuit alleges that Dejoy has impeded the timely distribution of mail, implemented crippling policies on postal workers, and sabotaged the United States Postal Service in a blatant attempt to disenfranchise voters of color, who are already more harshly impacted by the coronavirus and require alternative methods to in-person voting to protect their health and safety.

After embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced he would pause recent controversial changes to U.S. Postal Service protocol, the service told workers not to reinstall removed equipment. 40 percent of the high-speed mail sorting machines in the Seattle-Tacoma area were disconnected or dismantled since the changes went into effect, according to NPR, with workers in the Tacoma, Washington sorting plant saying eight of their 18 machines that sort and postmark letters were disconnected and pushed into a corner.

The bodies were found by a group of teenagers who were led to the beach by the Randonautic app.

A 62-year-old man is in custody for the slaying of two people after their remains were found in suitcases on a West Seattle beach in June. The man was arrested at his Burien residence in the 16000 block of Ambaum Boulevard South around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to probable cause documents from the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. He was questioned and booked into the King County Jail. A King County judge on Thursday found probable cause to hold the man on investigation of murder and set his bail at $5 million, said Casey McNerthney, a spokesperson for the prosecuting attorney’s office. A charging decision is expected by Monday, he said. The Seattle Times generally does not name suspects until charges are filed. The remains were discovered by a group of teens doing a type of scavenger hunt, who filmed the suitcase that had washed up near shore at Duwamish Head on June 19. They opened it while recording for a TikTok post and found plastic bags. They called police and waited for several hours for officers to arrive. By then the suitcase was on the verge of being towed back to sea by the ebbing tide. When officers arrived, they found a second suitcase, police said. Authorities have since identified the remains of the two people found inside the bags as 35-year-old Jessica Lewis and 27-year-old Austin Wenner, who had been in a relationship for about eight years, a family member said. The King County Medical Examiner’s Office has since ruled their deaths as homicides, and determined Lewis’ cause of death was from multiple gunshot wounds, while Wenner died of a single gunshot wound. According to the probable cause documents, detectives later learned the suitcases found on the beach belonged to the 62-year-old man, who had been renting a room in his Burien house to the couple. The man had wanted Wenner and Lewis to move out, witnesses told police, causing a fight among the three. Detectives also learned that a few neighbors had heard gunfire and yelling from inside the house on June 9 — 10 days before the remains were found in West Seattle — documents said. Neighbors called 911, but when Burien police officers responded, they didn’t get a response from the residence.

On the second Saturday of August, about 100 protestors gathered at the "Big Red Wagon," a well-known attraction in downtown Spokane, Washington. Men, women and children marched through the streets chanting, “Save the children.” It was ostensibly an effort “to raise awareness and start a conversation” about child trafficking, according to a local television reporter at the scene. Many of the marchers held signs that would be expected at such a rally: "Save our kids," "Your silence is deafening," and "Wake up 4 our children," to name a few. But other signs were less clear, and suggested that something darker was going on during an event that otherwise seemed organic and sympathetic. "Symbolism will be their downfall," one read. Another featured the hashtag "#Pedowood." Yet another was a strange acronym: “WWG1WGA," short for "Where we go one, we go all."

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) quietly signed a bill into law ramping up punishments for certain kinds of protests, including losing the right to vote.

Samuel Miller McDonald takes an introspective look at chemical deserts, Disney’s hegemony, and empires of the past and future.

Progressives have gotten all they can out of the election season... But if there’s to be any chance of progressive legislative success during a Biden administration, it can only be the product of pressure and influence campaigns aimed at Congress and set in motion the very second it becomes clear Biden has won the presidency and Democrats have taken the Senate... The country may well be doomed. But we won’t have a fighting chance if we don’t start planning the fight.

Pg 274 Cohen Tr. II, pp. 109-110 ("It's a club that puts on shows, and you never really know what the show is going to be. In this specific case they brought out a young man who was in a leotard body suit, who, to me, I would diagnose him as a thalidomide baby. And he was blind as well, but he sang like Pavarotti. And while he was singing-I forget the song, it was like a 'God Bless America' -type song-there was a woman who was in a thong bikini, who was large, performing sex acts on him while he was singing. Interesting, because I was with Mr. Trump at the time. It was not really a place I expected to be with him at. He looked over to me when he was finished, and I'll never forget this, he looked me right in the face. He goes, 'That's a tough way to make a living."'); Cohen told the Committee he did not remember the name of the club. Based on testimony from other witnesses, the club was The Act.

An Alternate Reality Game designer takes a look at QAnon and finds it uncannily familiar.

“We’re coming into the fall months, and outdoor seating is not going to be as possible as it was over the summer,” Gov. Chris Sununu said.

The Boston Public Garden lagoon is going to be drained and cleaned after about 20 ducks died of what is believed to be botulism, which grows in stagnant pools of water during periods of extreme heat. Rob Halpin of the MSPCA-Angell Animal Medical Center said beginning Sunday, about 20 wild mallard ducks were brought to their facility in Jamaica Plain by good Samaritans and park rangers. The birds were suffering from paralysis and severe respiratory issues. None of the ducks were able to be successfully treated, and they all had to be euthanized. "The investigations are still in progress, but information to date suggests that the birds may be suffering from botulism," Halpin said in an email. "Botulism is caused by a neurotoxin produced by a bacterium known as Clostridium botulinum, which can grow in stagnant pools of water during periods of intense prolonged heat, such as the period Boston has just endured." Another contributing factor is believed to be the absence of the Swan Boats this year due to the pandemic. The paddle wheels from the boats introduce oxygen into the lagoon and create turbulence that discourages unwanted growth.

In an only-in-the-Bay-Area turn of events, the Oakland Police Department raided the country’s most prominent psychedelic “church” and magic mushroom dispensary last week. Its minister, Dave Hodges, told Vice News that armed cops busted into Zide Door Church of Entheogenic Plants on Aug. 13 and seized $200,000 in cash, cannabis and several strains of psychedelic mushrooms; no one was arrested. Though the Oakland City Council voted to decriminalize hallucinogenic fungi possession and consumption last year, that policy doesn’t extend to sales. And according to police, Hodges received several warnings to shut down the operation, which their warrant described as an unpermitted cannabis dispensary. “The council said mushrooms should not be our priority, and they’re not,” said Oakland Police Captain Randell Wingate told Vice News about the raid. “You can use mushrooms, you can grow your own mushrooms—but selling mushrooms is still not legal.”