Capitalizing on the pressure to pass the Affordable Care Act, a conservative lobbyist created an exception for faith-based health coverage, opening the door for “bad actors.”

A 25-year-old man was arrested Wednesday, two days after City of Miami Commissioner Manolo Reyes’ city-issued truck was vandalized outside his Coral Way district office, authorities confirmed.

Never get on a cruise ship.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a giant con that heralded a thousand more

“I think no regular person could read this and look at Fox like a news organization at this point.” In the wake of bombshell legal filings showing that Fox News executives and stars seemingly sought to pacify their disgruntled MAGA viewers by airing election lies, while punishing and censoring the employees attempting to deliver the actual truth, the above observation has become commonplace within media circles. But some of the shots are being fired from within the conservative cable giant. According to nine Fox News staffers and insiders, the pre-trial filings in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News further impugn and sully the reputation of the network’s “straight news” journalists, especially since they show Fox was “operating out of fear” over losing viewers to smaller right-wing competitors following its Decision Desk’s early (and accurate) Arizona election night call for President Joe Biden. “We are not happy,” one reporter told The Daily Beast.

Just months before Silvergate Capital Corp. announced that it was winding down, banking’s first casualty from the crypto industry’s implosion, a company called Block.one was boosting its investment. Silvergate’s stock was plummeting, depositors were fleeing and the short-sellers were circling — but Block.one and its chief executive officer Brendan Blumer were big buyers. In November, they purchased stock amounting to a 9.27% stake in the lender, according to a statement late that month. By the end of December, the firm, whose long-time backers include Peter Thiel and Alan Howard, had boosted that position so that Block.one, together with Blumer, became Silvergate’s biggest holder with a combined 9.9% holding.

The top trade group for mortgage companies is engaged in an effort on Capitol Hill to safeguard against, and potentially capitalize on, a future Supreme Court ruling that could render the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism unconstitutional. The Prospect has confirmed that the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is circulating a document in Congress that includes rules it would like to see turned into statutory law, protecting safe harbors and other benefits for mortgage companies that would go away if the CFPB were invalidated. Critics charge that the MBA’s effort reveals private anxiety over the Supreme Court upholding a Fifth Circuit ruling made by three Trump-appointed judges last October, even though the trade group’s official response has been relatively muted. It shows how mortgage and other financial players actually welcome the CFPB’s role in making markets function smoothly, no matter how much they rail against them in public. The behind-the-scenes action also reveals the quiet terror financial companies and lobbyists are feeling over the court case, though they have not openly sided with the CFPB.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan's Democratic-led Legislature moved Wednesday to repeal the state's “right-to-work” law that was passed more than a decade ago when Republicans controlled the Statehouse.

WWE is in talks with state gambling regulators in Michigan and Colorado to legalize betting on high-profile matches.

Looking forward to new character, Hard’R’bert.

Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a bill into law this week that rolls back a number of child labor protections across the state, including a measure that had required employers to obtain work certificates for children under the age of 16.

A Quebec court judge says Canadians have a "God-given," constitutionally protected right to flip off obnoxious neighbours.

It's still just vibes in search of a hypothesis

Donald Trump has privately told confidants that, should he be re-elected president, he could pardon any of his allies if they face charges from the Biden-era Justice Department in two major probes, two people familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone. Since last summer, the former president has been telling some of those close to him that the pardons would be for higher-level people and could come early in his time in office, effectively wiping away a multi-year effort to hold powerful people and their cohorts legally accountable for their actions during and after Trump’s first term. “This would be like hitting the delete-key on all of [the] DOJ’s work on these investigations — and be an opening shot in his next war on the ‘Deep State,’” says one of the sources, adding it would be part of Trump “cleaning house” at the start of his second term. “The idea was that he can just pardon everybody [if] he’s president again … That he can do it ‘fast’ and early on in his [new] term,” the source continues. “He was not talking about the [Jan. 6 rioters and] prisoners, it was about people working on post-election activities and on the documents. All the different ‘witch hunts.’”

On Monday, Nick Cannon, father to 12 children, posted a cryptic Instagram story featuring a baby bottle emoji, saying he had big news to share. A collective grigh (groan/sigh) went around the world. Was he teasing the revelation of lucky number baby 13? Yet somehow the actual reveal was even more disconcerting than simply procreating once more. Instead, Nick Cannon is going to be hosting a game show called Who’s Having My Baby? in which women compete to…have a baby with him.

In Kingston, New York, tenants say their survival depends on the city ordering a rent reduction – something that’s never been done before Half of Kingston’s 24,000 residents are renters, but finding a vacant apartment has become nearly impossible. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Kingston hit $1,615 this year – roughly 25% more expensive than three years ago. That’s devastating in a city where the median per capita income is just over $32,000, and nearly one-fifth of residents live under the federal poverty line. What began 10 years ago as a trend of city-dwellers flocking to Kingston as an alternative to the Hamptons was exacerbated by the pandemic. Younger New Yorkers drawn to Kingston’s Instagram-worthy Uptown and the Rondout district’s charming riverfront also found its outdoorsy backdrops suitable for remote work. Landlords in Kingston responded to the demand by converting houses into Airbnbs – between 2019 and 2021, there was a 30% surge in short-term rental bookings in Ulster county, which includes Kingston and the nearby town of Woodstock, with nearly 2,000 active vacation rentals charging an average nightly rate of $441, according to a rental industry report.

One of the surviving U.S. citizens was wounded and the other wasn't, Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said.

The Mancunians spliced Donna Summer with Ennio Morricone to make a futurist dance smash – and ended up influencing Rihanna, Pet Shop Boys and Detroit techno

Twitter this morning announced it’s bringing the full-service creative agency Ueno in-house to work alongside Twitter’s own design and research teams. The move, an acqui-hire of sorts, is one where Twitter is essentially buying the agency with which it already had a close working relationship, as Ueno had previously partnered with Twitter on various design […] (This is old, it's about the company of the guy Elon publicly fired while mocking his physical disability.)

The astronomically popular YouTuber asked followers to rearrange his products on Walmart shelves — and set a strange new precedent in retail