COVID-19 is killing more Republicans than Democrats, according to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study, titled Excess Death Rates for Republicans and Democrats During the COVID-19 Pandemic, used voter registration and death records to answer a question: is there a link between political affiliation and rates of COVID related death in the U.S.? The short answer is yes. “In 2018 and the early parts of 2020, excess death rates for Republicans and Democrats are similar, and centered around zero,” the study said. “Both groups experienced a similar large spike in excess deaths in the winter of 2020-2021. However, in the summer of 2021—after vaccines were widely available—the Republican excess death rate rose to nearly double that of Democrats, and this gap widened further in the winter of 2021.”

Andy Dick was sentenced to 90 days in jail after he was convicted of sexual battery for allegedly groping an Uber driver, according to court documents obtained by The Blast. During the hearing, the judge also ruled that Dick must register as a sex offender.

Los Angeles residents jailed because they can’t afford to pay bail have filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the system that often keeps low-income people behind bars before they’ve been charged. The complaint was filed on Monday on behalf of six people in LA jails who were recently arrested but have not yet seen a judge, been arraigned or assigned a public defender. The case is the first to challenge LA’s “bail schedule”, the county’s formal guidelines for the cash amounts based on alleged offenses. LA county is home to the largest jail system in the US, which has recently been mired in scandals involving claims of widespread physical abuse against incarcerated people and “barbaric” conditions where people are chained to chairs for days and made to sleep on concrete floors. Bail leaves thousands of poor people behind bars, according to Public Justice’s Debtors’ Prison Project and the Civil Rights Corps, two non-profit groups that filed the suit. The consequences of this bail system can be fatal, lawyers said. The complaint lists 10 people who died in LA jails while they couldn’t afford to pay bail and before they were arraigned and formally charged. The bail they faced ranged from $500 to $100,000.

Farrar, a 51-year-old with type 1 diabetes, had been insulin dependent since age 15. On the day he died, his medical records show, his blood sugar was dangerously low. When staff gave him glucagon to raise his levels, the records say, his blood sugar shot up, at which point he had a seizure and heart attack and died. The coroner said Farrar’s cause of death was “natural”, due to heart disease and diabetes. But Farrar’s family believes the prison neglected his health throughout his detention, including by denying him access to life-saving supplies. A state committee found that staff responding to his collapse lacked proper training and that the medical devices they used had malfunctioned. Farrar’s death, advocates argue, was a tragic but predictable consequence of the inadequate medical care within the Washington department of corrections (DOC), which has experienced repeated public health crises and scandals in recent years. Even in a state considered one of the most progressive in the US, where the Democratic governor has pledged to make prisons “safer and more humane”, claims of systemic medical neglect have persisted, advocates point out, and in the last year, problems have escalated. “They let him die. They killed my brother,” said Mary Farrar-McQueen, the sister of Farrar, who also leaves behind a wife and nine children. “My brother was not ‘sick’. He was only a diabetic like millions. He had a long life ahead of him. He died a senseless death, a preventable death.”

Donald Trump, who has mounted relentless attacks on the integrity of U.S. voting since his 2020 election defeat, on Tuesday launched a bid to regain the presidency in 2024, aiming to pre-empt potential Republican rivals.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has involved many surprises. The largest, however, is that it happened at all. Last year, Russia was at peace and enmeshed in a complex global economy. Would it really sever trade ties – and threaten nuclear war – just to expand its already vast territory? Despite the many warnings, including from Vladimir Putin himself, the invasion still came as a shock.

Some of his co-defendants were exonerated. Others died behind bars. Of four death sentences, only Hooper’s remains. Now he’s up for execution. Murray Hooper just needs more time. He says this over and over again, with an urgency bordering on despair. He is six days away from execution and not ready to give up. But he doesn’t want to delude himself either. “I’m just trying to deal with reality,” he says. “I don’t like that wishful thinking.” It’s Thursday, November 10. We’re sitting face to face in a small visiting room inside the Browning Unit, part of the sprawling desert prison in Florence, Arizona. An hour southeast of Phoenix, the Arizona State Prison Complex is home to the state’s death row as well as the death chamber, which was recently reactivated following a long moratorium. After eight years without an execution, Arizona has killed two people in 2022. Hooper, 76, who most people call Hoop, is supposed to be the third. Hooper, who is Black, wears thick glasses and a bright orange sweatshirt. He has short white hair. He is uncuffed but wearing leg irons, along with a belly chain around his waist. An officer in tactical gear has halfheartedly informed me that I’m entitled to a stab-proof vest, but he clearly considers it unnecessary. I get a waiver to sign instead. Hooper bristles at the absurdity of it all. He has not gotten a single write-up in his years on Arizona’s death row. “I’m not a threat,” he says. But the staff has to follow the rules, so they shackle him even when he is taken to shower. Hooper doesn’t believe that they want to see him put to death. “They’ve never said it, because they can’t.” I’ve come to see Hooper because he wants to tell his story. But he is not here to reflect upon his life. And he’s certainly not here to demonstrate redemption or remorse. He wants me to know that he is innocent: that he was railroaded by crooked cops, corrupt prosecutors, and a judge who saw the state’s misconduct firsthand but sentenced him to die anyway.

Heavy-handed policing by Arkansas authorities—with an assist from the Trump and Biden Justice Departments—put Dawn Jeffrey in jail and left her fellow protesters demoralized and demobilized. It’s a scorching July day during the pandemic’s first summer. In the month since the murder of George Floyd, residents have gathered frequently in front of the Arkansas State Capitol, marching to protest the police killings of Black people across the country. But today there’s something more confrontational on the horizon. About 20 anti-police-violence activists are preparing to “hold the line”—with homemade protest signs as their shields—as a group of Blue Lives Matter supporters barrel toward them. Brittany Dawn Jeffrey is among the demonstrators. Over the course of the summer, the 30-year-old activist has become a recognizable figure throughout the state, known for her relentless organizing and social media presence. In a video captured by a reporter, six large men can be seen striding directly toward Jeffrey and her fellow activists, followed by dozens of others. Leading them is Richard Fought, a home insulation salesman, who is wearing a muscle shirt and holding a large Thin Blue Line flag. Pummeling their way through, Fought and the other men crash into Jeffrey’s group as police nearby stand and watch. Brawls break out. Fought would later brag on social media that he “smashed a couple” of activists, in one case with police assistance, though he later told us via text message that his violence was in self-defense. Some of the racial justice protesters were injured, according to a demonstrator who was there. The Little Rock Police Department told us it never investigated Fought’s actions; there’s no evidence assaults by police supporters were ever investigated. Instead, police immediately confronted Jeffrey, part of a pattern that summer in which Black activists and their allies say they were singled out for surveillance and mistreatment.

Taylor Swift’s long-awaited return to touring spelled disaster Tuesday for live-events site Ticketmaster as fans scrambled to secure their seats for the singer-songwriter’s “Eras” show. Millions of Swift fans descended on Ticketmaster early Tuesday to jostle for spots at “Eras,” her first tour in four years and as many albums. Many quickly took to social media to report glitches and delays that left them ticketless. Buyers reported frozen queues and broken checkouts on the site, and hours into the mayhem, Ticketmaster tweeted that demand for the shows was “unprecedented” and that people in queues should “hang tight.” It also rescheduled some presale events to Wednesday.

Though the battle for Ukraine remains largely a grinding artillery war, new advances in technology and training there are being closely monitored for the ways they are starting to shape combat. Three months ago, as Ukrainian troops were struggling to advance against Russian forces in the south, the military’s headquarters in Kyiv quietly deployed a valuable new weapon to the battlefield. It was not a rocket launcher, cannon or another kind of heavy arms from Western allies. Instead, it was a real-time information system known as Delta — an online network that military troops, civilian officials and even vetted bystanders could use to track and share desperately needed details about Russian forces. The software, developed in coordination with NATO, had barely been tested in battle. But as they moved across the Kherson region in a major counteroffensive, Ukraine’s forces employed Delta, as well as powerful weaponry supplied by the West, to push the Russians out of towns and villages they had occupied for months. The big payoff came on Friday with the retreat of Russian forces from Kherson City — a major prize in the nearly nine-month war. Delta is one example of how Ukraine has become a testing ground for state-of-the-art weapons and information systems, and new ways to use them, that Western political officials and military commanders predict could shape warfare for generations to come.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California is poised to become president pro tempore of the Senate, according to long-standing Senate tradition. As a result of her new status as the longest-serving Democratic senator, the 89-year-old lawmaker would be third in line to the presidency, behind the vice president and House Speaker. "Well, I haven't thought about it, but I'll let you know when I do," said Feinstein, who was first elected in 1992. "I just got back, I've had a lot of issues." An aide walking with the senator quickly interjected, telling Insider that Feinstein had "told a few reporters in the past that she's not thought about it, and has no intention of seeking the position." "That's what you've told reporters," the aide said to Feinstein. "I don't know what you're saying," she replied. "This is about the Senate pro tem position," he said. "Well, I haven't said anything about it, that I know of," she insisted. "You were asked about it over the break, and you put out a statement saying that you had no intention of running for it," he said, apparently referencing the statement given to the Post. "Okay, well then, I guess it's out," she conceded.

Tens of thousands of people packed the Mexican capital’s main boulevard Sunday to protest President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s proposal to overhaul the country’s electoral authority in the largest demonstration against one of the president’s efforts during his nearly four years in office.

Initial reports indicated that Russian rockets had hit a Polish town near the Ukrainian border, killing two civilians.

As an accompaniment to the article on the midterms, here is the full interview, edited for legibility:

Drivers who obscure their license plates cheated the MTA out of at least $144 million in tolls last year. Nine traffic fatalities in 2021 involved drivers with illegal plates, and the driver of one of these "ghost cars" killed a 67-year-old woman and critically injured an 8-year-old boy this past June while evading police. So when cyclist and attorney Adam White spotted an SUV in Brooklyn with a piece of plastic obscuring the back plate on his way to work last Friday, he felt good about pulling over and peeling it off. "I do think it's a very important issue," White told Hell Gate. "Drivers need to be held accountable." White says his decision earned him a misdemeanor charge and five hours in a jail cell, while the driver drove away without a summons. "It happened so fast," White said.

The man was knocked onto the freeway below, police said.

New York City’s landlords say they’re fighting for life, liberty, and the pursuit of eviction.

We all know Star Wars and Star Trek, but Stargate has been around for just as long, with just as many fun space adventures to its name.

The cost of Eli Lilly's insulin has increased by thousands in recent years, but a few fake tweets cut an estimated $15 billion out of the company’s market cap.

The Times paints a picture of a troubled businessman who made bad investments, rather than an industry built like a house of cards.