The state's surgeon general grants parents permission to send unvaccinated children to school during a measles outbreak, risking their health and that of others.

As a cash crunch looms, Trump’s campaign is miraculously not reporting donor refunds—an untested trick that makes it harder to tell how tired his donors really are.

A 28-year-old serving police officer has been charged with two counts of murder during an investigation into the disappearance of former Channel Ten presenter Jesse Baird and his Qantas flight attendant partner, Luke Davies. Police on Friday alleged that ballistic testing at the Paddington home of Baird – a partner of Sen Const Beau Lamarre until a couple of months ago – found evidence a police firearm had been discharged. This included the discovery of one cartridge case, as well as a large amount of blood at the home. The firearm used was later placed in a police gun safe, detectives alleged.

In his decision, a judge agreed that the alleged white nationalists were being selectively prosecuted instead of 'far-left extremist groups, such as Antifa.'

The locations of microphones used to detect gunshots have been kept hidden from police and the public. A WIRED analysis of leaked coordinates confirms arguments critics have made against the technology.

The use of police dogs enacts cruelty on people of color and the dogs themselves. To fully rid society of slavery, the dogs must be retired.

The forgotten remains of a beloved, 16th-century papal pet. Beneath the Vatican's Belvedere courtyard, just a few feet below ground, lies the skeletal remains of an elephant. Yes, an elephant. The story of how and why it got there is an especially peculiar chapter of papal history. The skeleton was discovered in 1962, writes Sarah Laskow for Atlas Obscura, while maintenance workers were installing a heating and cooling system. It dates back to the 16th century, when Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici became Pope Leo X. At the time, Christian rulers would present gifts to the Vatican to curry favor; when Pope Leo X was elected in 1513, Manuel I, the king of Portugal, decided he would outdo all of his rivals.

A new government is preparing to take the reins in Pakistan, but not the one its people elected. Nearly two weeks after the general election, Pakistan finds itself on the brink of being governed by a coalition of the also-rans. Defying all odds, candidates affiliated with imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, emerged from the Feb. 8 polls as the largest voting bloc in Parliament. This resulted in several rounds of negotiations between the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz and the Pakistan People’s Party to create a coalition government that could counter PTI’s influence. On Tuesday night, the two parties reached a power-sharing agreement.

The private equity firm that now owns the one-time digital publishing giant is planning the slash what remains of its existing workforce in the next few days.

The King County Prosecutor’s Office will not move forward with criminal charges against Seattle Police Officer Kevin Dave in the Jan. 2023 death of Jaahnavi Kandula. Dave was driving 74 miles an hour without continuously running his siren while supposedly responding to a drug overdose call, on a street with a speed limit of 25 miles an hour. Months later, footage was released of Seattle Police Officers Guild Vice President Daniel Auderer joking about Kandula’s death over the phone with SPOG President Mike Solan. In that recording, Auderer can be heard laughing as he referred to Kandula as “a regular person,” going on to say, “Just write a check -- $11,000, she was 26 anyway, she had limited value.”

In Idaho, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the powerful conservative legal group known for its critical role behind the strategy that overturned Roe v. Wade, specifically cited Paul’s Feb. 4 column as evidence of the “ostracism, pain, and lifelong regret” young people experience after receiving gender-affirming health care. The legal brief, which aimed to overturn a federal judge’s December ruling that blocked the state from enforcing a ban on gender-affirming health care, was ultimately unsuccessful. But it underscored the right’s enthusiasm for including New York Times pieces that have been accused of cherry-picking data and citing problematic sources in their defenses of anti-trans legislation across the country. “It’s not surprising that the ADF would cite Paul,” Gillian Branstetter, Communications Strategist from the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, told Mother Jones. “They have been working to manufacture doubt around the safety and efficacy of this care.” My colleague Madison Pauly has reported on this very effort. In May 2023, Pauly uncovered leaked emails that showed ADF working behind the scenes to pressure Republican lawmakers to create some of the most restrictive bills in the country. That strategy often involved citing misinformation and experts some view as unqualified or biased.

Tim Burke, a freelance journalist and media consultant, has been charged with 14 federal crimes, including conspiracy. Burke was arrested this morning, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Rolling Stone obtained a copy of the indictment, which accuses Burke of playing “multiple roles in the conspiracy, including utilizing compromised credentials to gain unauthorized access to protected computers, scouring those protected computers for electronic items and information, obtaining and stealing electronic items and information deemed desirable, organizing and exploiting some of those electronic items and information, and intercepting and disclosing contents of wire, oral and/or electronic video communications.” Mark Rasch, Burke’s lawyer and an ex-federal prosecutor who pursued cases for the Department of Justice’s fraud unit, has maintained that the Fox News clips were obtained legally, and that Burke is a journalist whose activities are protected by the First Amendment... Rasch, Burke’s lawyer, described the method Burke used to obtain the videos in an August interview with the Columbia Journalism Review. “Fox, like many other broadcasters, are livestreaming continuously to many different entities — to their affiliates, and so on — and these live feeds are in high definition and encrypted. But at the same time, they are also broadcasting low-definition, unencrypted feeds. They’re internet addressable, with no user ID and password required. All you need to know is the URL,” Rasch said. He added in that interview that Burke did not attempt to conceal his activities: “[E]ven a cursory glance tells you where the data came from, and it points right directly to Tim Burke’s IP address. Why? Because he wasn’t being secretive about this. He was going to public URLs from his own IP address. He didn’t try to conceal it. He didn’t circumvent anything. But Fox says it never authorized this, and the government went and ran with that theory.”

Rights groups criticise deal that could see up to 36,000 people a year held in Italian-run asylum-processing centres.

Scientific-misconduct accusations are leading to retractions of high-profile papers, forcing reckonings within fields and ending professorships, even presidencies. But there’s no telling how widespread errors are in research: As it is, they’re largely brought to light by unpaid volunteers. A program launching this month is hoping to shake up that incentive structure. Backed by 250,000 Swiss francs, or roughly $285,000, in funding from the University of Bern, in Switzerland, it will pay reviewers to root out mistakes in influential papers, beginning with a handful in psychology.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker will include the $10 million ask in his budget proposal for the next fiscal year to erase Illinois residents' $1 billion in medical debt — and the investment would mark the first in a multiyear plan.

Last week, as American sports fans’ eyes moved from football to baseball, a great cry—or at least a significant grumble—was heard from MLB players arriving at spring training: The new uniforms are bad. The MLB announced the uniforms, which have been redesigned by Nike for all of the league’s 30 teams, in a press release last Tuesday. It included praise from some of the biggest baseball names on Nike’s endorsement roster. As images of the uniforms began to circulate, however, a number of other players voiced, shall we say, differing opinions. Many were upset that they’d no longer been given the chance to tailor the fit of their pants. The uniforms are thin and flimsy feeling. Some of the colors seem off. The design elements are poorly spaced and sized, and the lettering for players’ names seems too small. According to The Athletic, some players feel so strongly about the changes that they’ve taken their concerns to their union. The Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson, who has an endorsement deal with Nike, has said that he contacted the brand himself to see if some of these concerns could be resolved. It’s hard to dismiss the aesthetic complaints, especially when you compare the new jerseys with those of previous seasons. The new ones look tawdry and a little swagless, like replica jerseys. Fans quickly joined the chorus of outrage. Regular people are the actual primary consumers of pro-sports jerseys, and Nike plans to offer three versions of the new uniforms to buyers, each with varying levels of fidelity to what players wear on field. The two currently available cost $175 and $395. One post on X from the popular MLB-fan account Korked Bats said the jerseys looked like players’ moms had gotten them on clearance at TJ Maxx. The uniforms might bear the Nike logo, but in looking to assign blame, fans have largely seized on what has become a familiar villain in American sports: Fanatics, the sprawling memorabilia conglomerate that manufactured the new uniforms on Nike’s behalf. Over the past couple of decades, Fanatics (with the apparently full support of all of the major American sports leagues) has upended the licensed-sports-merch market and centralized much of the production and sale of team gear under its control. If you’re a fan who wants a T-shirt or cap with your team’s logo, Fanatics has immense power over your options. Complaints about the quality and prices of the products it sells abound.

The landlord behind the largest mass eviction from rent control housing in Los Angeles in 40 years poured more than $1.1 million into city elections in 2022 and has spent $400,000 in the current election cycle. The company’s only prior donation occurred in 2010: $500 to then-Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz. Tenants at Barrington Plaza, a rent-controlled 712-unit Westside apartment complex, and their advocates say that the company backed the election of decision makers who would allow the eviction of tenants from 577 units. The donations came after the landlord met with a city councilmember and raised the possibility of evicting some of its tenants, renovating the property to make it fire safe and later re-renting the apartments, according to two participants in the meeting. Then-Councilmember Mike Bonin said he opposed the idea. One of the complex’s three towers had been badly damaged in a deadly 2020 fire that left eight floors unfit for occupancy.

FTSE 100 company says global instability is making government focus on defence spending

Around 5 a.m. each day, the quiet streets of Sanhe burst to life as the young migrants sleeping outside the labor market awaken to a quick calculation: Do they have enough cash to make it through the day? If they do, they’ll roll over and slip back into sleep. If they don’t, they’ll rush off to the market in search of work, preferably as couriers, construction workers, or security guards. The contracts are entirely verbal and paid out at the end of the day. The newly flush workers are free to roam for a few days — at least until their money runs out and the cycle begins anew. The lives of young migrants to Sanhe, located in the southern megacity of Shenzhen, first attracted public attention around three years ago. Contrary to the conventional image of migrant workers as dreary automatons trapped on factory lines, the so-called Sanhe youth have little interest in formal work. Accustomed to low-quality and low-cost living, their mantra is simple: “Work for a day, party for three.” The most extreme among them, known for their abilities to tolerate near-absolute poverty, are referred as “Sanhe legends.”

A federal judge has affirmed a $5 million arbitration award against MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell.