The brand is in peril

Once you buy into their hateful conspiracy theory, you’ll turn against anyone

The newly named mayor of The Village, Adam Graham, resigned Monday, claiming has was harassed after an encounter with Nichols Hills police.

"Like an ugly vestige of 1980s Patrick Bateman excess and Japanese fetishism." San Francisco is getting its first NFT-based restaurant and private club. And it’s being built right in the middle of a public park. A flurry of recent press releases from an entity named the Sho Group — a “global experiential hospitality platform” — revealed the details of the ostentatious Japanese-themed restaurant and private club, to be built on San Francisco’s most ostentatious public space, Salesforce Park. The restaurant, slated to open sometime next year, will include the members-only Sho Club Sky Lounge and will be perched atop the western end of Salesforce Park’s four-block stretch in a neighborhood no one from San Francisco is calling the East Cut. The venture is led by Josh Sigel, a self-described “internationally recognized thought leader and innovator.” The wording around the club’s recent media blitz reads like a parody of Silicon Valley’s repellent buzzwordery. "SHO Club is a member’s only NFT-based hospitality club providing exclusive access to immersive experiences and services around its flagship restaurant, SHO," reads the blurb. What’s more galling than the repeated use of the terms “immersive” and “experiential” to describe an actual restaurant is the fact that, as the group’s website proudly proclaims, the astronomically expensive and exclusive eatery “is the only rooftop restaurant located on the Salesforce Transit Center’s roof.” As downtown San Francisco suffers through soaring homelessness, vacant storefronts and a deadly fentanyl epidemic, the idea of its newest public space only providing food for those willing to spend exorbitant sums is brazen. In a terrifying J.G. Ballard-like dystopian metaphor come to life, the private lounge, which will charge a top-tier membership fee of $300,000 a pop (yes, really, more on that later), will be situated 70 feet above surrounding homeless encampments.

A WarnerMedia report reveals that bots and other inauthentic users bolstered the fan-led campaign for director Zack Snyder’s Justice League do-over

Wilted flowers mark the outdoor staircase leading up to the condo where police say a San Diego man murdered Connie Dadkhah, 45. That man, Parrish Chambers Jr., 44, is now sitting in a jail cell without bail awaiting trial for murder. Yet three of Connie’s neighbors who spoke with NBC 7 Investigates feel police deserve some of the blame. “Had they just done their job, she would still be alive,” said Michelle. “It’s incredibly upsetting,” said Mike. “It’s really unbelievable. Very, very scary.” “I just feel such a strange combination of anxiety and anger and sadness,” said Sally. “It could have been prevented.” In order to protect their identities, NBC 7 Investigates is using fictitious names for the neighbors. Officers found Connie’s lifeless body inside her condo Wednesday morning, June 15. But neighbor interviews, dispatch records, 911 call timestamps and surveillance video all gathered by NBC 7 Investigates show the calls for help started nearly 12 hours earlier. Around 7 p.m. the night before two neighbors called 911 reporting a man banging on Connie’s door and screaming. Over the next hour, at least five more calls rolled into 911, but no officers were dispatched. Then, just after 8 p.m., neighbors heard and saw something that prompted dispatchers to speed up the police response. “He somehow managed to climb onto her balcony and break through her glass door. So he broke in,” said Sally. “I told them [police] that there is an active burglary happening to my neighbor’s house,” said Michelle. “I’m looking at him through the window. He entered through the second-story sliding glass door, he busted the door...” At that point, dispatch records show the call was upgraded to a higher priority, and officers started staging at a parking lot nearby. About 45 minutes later, they arrived at Connie’s condo and knocked on the door. “They finally show up,” said Michelle. “They’re walking up and I’m noticing them looking around and I come out of my door and I point to the unit and I say he’s in there, and they just nodded their heads. So they flashed their light, they could totally see the broken glass.” Police say officers tried calling Connie’s phone and looked for her car. But since Connie didn’t answer the door, officers ultimately left. “At this point, I'm like what is going on?” said Michelle. “Where are they going? What’s happening? You have no idea what he’s going to do. He can easily break into someone else’s home. Especially on the first floor if he got into the second floor. And I was thinking why is it not an emergency? Why are they just walking away?” The next morning, just before 8:30 a.m., police say Chambers came outside and told a neighbor to call 911 because Connie was dead. Surveillance video obtained by NBC 7 Investigates shows officers arresting Chambers minutes later.

A Baltimore man running for U.S. Senate is criminally charged in Harford County after authorities there allege he made a false report about child sex trafficking at an adult store.

Two years after nearly causing a major upset in Democratic politics, it is Charles Booker’s turn to be the Democratic nominee for Senate in Kentucky where he’ll take his progressive message for a spin against Republican Sen. Rand Paul. But, unlike Amy McGrath, the former fighter pilot who was feted by Democrats in 2020 until the moment she was decimated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Booker has largely been ignored by national Democrats—in part because the feeling of impending Democratic doom grows stronger as the midterms draw closer. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) told The Daily Beast that compared to Kentucky, there are other races the organization is watching more closely. Booker’s fundraising numbers aren’t anywhere near McGrath’s—Paul is fundraising at almost six times his pace. What little polling there’s been shows him trailing Paul by double digits. Booker’s progressive persona—though a means to potentially turn out the left flank of Kentucky voters—is sure to be weaponized by Republicans. Since the very start of his candidacy, Republicans have branded Booker as a socialist, with the National Republican Senatorial Committee suggesting they welcome him to the race. Yet proponents of Booker’s candidacy say it’s a new era for Kentucky Democrats—and are urging the party not to turn their backs now. “By turning a blind eye to the state of Kentucky, they are just giving up,” Denise Gray, former deputy political director for Amy McGrath’s campaign, told The Daily Beast.

Michael Peroutka thinks American leaders must “take a biblical worldview and apply it to civil law and government.” He’s a former board member of the neo-Confederate League of the South, has said he’s “still angry” that Maryland was blocked from seceding during the Civil War. He thinks public education is a communist plot, says laws protecting abortion and gay marriage are illegal and unenforceable because they violate God’s law, and called the concept of the separation of church and state a “great lie.” And on Tuesday, he may win the Republican nomination for Maryland’s attorney general. Peroutka is facing establishment favorite and former federal prosecutor Jim Shalleck in a primary contest race that’s flown under the radar for most voters. There’s been scant public polling, but Peroutka is better-known, better-funded and GOP strategists are worried he could actually win the nomination. His views are extreme even for the modern Republican Party, and once would be considered disqualifying for any major party nominee for statewide office. But his emergence as a serious candidate shows just how far the door has been thrown open to extremism in the Republican Party. The GOP base’s embrace of election falsehoods and anti-science COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and flirtation with white supremacist rhetoric has given once- fringe figures like Peroutka an opening to push into the political mainstream.

A sellout show of Weird Al Yankovic’s set of “unpopular songs” was polished — but “ill-advised.”

An already beleaguered workforce confronts a legion of impersonators and a platform they say isn’t doing enough to stop them.

Denver police injured five bystanders when they opened fire in the busy Lower Downtown nightlife district as bars closed early Sunday, shooting a man they allege pointed a gun at officers. Those bystanders — three women and two men — were either shot by police or injured with shrapnel from the officers’ bullets, Denver police said in a news release Sunday afternoon. All five are expected to survive. The man police say pointed a gun at officers, 21-year-old Jordan Waddy, is also expected to survive his injuries. Waddy did not fire the gun, according to the news release. Police arrested him on suspicion of felony menacing and possession of a weapon by a previous offender. Waddy and one female victim remained hospitalized Sunday evening in stable condition, police spokesman Doug Schepman said. The other four people were released. Guillermo Cortes was picking up a friend early Sunday and was standing near Larimer Beer Hall along with dozens of other people after the bars closed when officers fired their guns. Cortes said he saw two men get into a fight and at least two Denver police officers approached and followed one of the men. He said he saw the officers pull out their guns and shoot the man, who he watched fall to the ground. He said he did not see the man holding a weapon or hear the police give any warnings.

How Democrats went from unanimous opposition to an unpopular policy to doing nothing about it in the five years since it became law. Right as the Trump tax cuts were being finalized in December 2017, I wrote a piece for The New Republic about the silver lining that accompanied this large giveaway to the wealthy and well-connected. Democrats had put themselves in a straitjacket for years, with self-imposed “paygo” laws that they offset all new spending with revenue. That was fairly absurd in and of itself, but suddenly it was no longer a problem. The Trump tax cuts rolled back the estate tax, eliminated the alternative minimum tax, slashed the corporate tax rate, and created a new loophole, used mostly by the rich, for “pass-through” businesses. Repealing those measures alone could net you around $3 trillion—and all you would have to do is go back to the pre-Trump tax code circa fall 2017. Every Democrat in office at the time opposed the Trump tax cuts: Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, Josh Gottheimer, and Kurt Schrader; every single one of the cast of characters that has become so familiar today. They all opposed it, and presumably would all be satisfied with a 2017-era tax code. In the next presidential election, I surmised, all Democratic candidates would have to do is to say “I will repeal the Trump tax cuts,” and that could finance most if not all of their ambitions for their first term. There were $3 trillion in unpopular giveaways to the wealthy just waiting to be re-channeled into important priorities on energy and environment, health and family care, housing and transit, and more. Presumably. In that TNR piece, I also wrote that, “unfortunately, when Democrats get into power they suddenly get cold feet about repealing their predecessor’s bills.” I pointed to the Bush tax cuts, which were similarly loathed by almost all of the Democratic coalition (though not unanimously, as the Trump tax cuts were). On two separate occasions in the Obama administration, Democrats could have let the tax cuts expire and overhauled the tax code, potentially building new programs in the process. They first extended them all and then made them permanent except for the rates at the very top. A vice president by the name of Joe Biden conducted the latter negotiations, and got fleeced by Mitch McConnell, to the indignation of Democrats in the Senate.

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Biden administration from enforcing directives that extended civil rights protections to L.G.B.T.Q. students and workers. The ruling comes roughly one year after a group of 20 conservative state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against two federal agencies for their interpretation of the 1972 landmark civil rights statute known as Title IX, which prohibited sex-based discrimination in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited employers from discriminating against workers based on race, religion or sex. Last year, those agencies, the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, following guidance from President Biden, said the protections afforded under Title IX and Title VII extended to gay and transgender individuals and would be enforced in workplaces and in schools. In those directives, the agencies said that companies and schools could not deny a transgender person access to a bathroom that corresponded to that individual’s gender identity. They also said that students should be allowed to participate on a sports team consistent with their gender identity, and that federally funded schools have a responsibility to investigate sex discrimination, including sexual harassment, against students because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The lawsuit filed by Herbert H. Slatery III, the attorney general of Tennessee, and joined by 19 other states contended that the government infringed on states’ powers to regulate their public workplaces and schools. The attorneys general also said the administration violated federal law because it did not follow proper processes in implementing those mandates.

In total, 376 law enforcement officers descended upon the school, according to the most extensive account of the shooting to date. It says that better-equipped departments should have stepped up to fill a leadership void after the Uvalde schools police chief failed to take charge.

I’ve looked in the mirror a lot since I was a kid. I just find it fascinating. It’s not because I think I’m gorgeous. Sometimes I’ll look and think: “I’m looking right. This looks OK.” Then other days I think: “Jesus Christ, what’s happened there?”

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck got married in a Las Vegas drive-through chapel late on Saturday night, culminating a relationship that stretched over two decades in two separate romances and headlined countless tabloid covers.

Top Uvalde officials wanted to highlight the heroics of officers at Robb Elementary. The state police director refused to do so.

While some forms of air pollution are largely local problems, which sometimes can travel to other places, greenhouse gases — the emissions relevant to climate change — mix in the atmosphere and therefore are shared globally. If the U.S., which is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, substantially reduced its emissions, it would be beneficial to America and the rest of the world.

In the summer of 2018, Lisa Robillard left her doctor’s office and walked down the long corridor of a medical complex in suburban Virginia. She’d just had an appointment with yet another physician who could only recommend “diet and exercise” when she brought up her life-long struggle with her weight. Robillard was 11 when she attended her first Weight Watchers meeting with her family, who celebrated hitting their dieting goals by going out for ice cream. Later, when her first fiancé proposed, the ring was conditional on dropping several dress sizes. She lost the weight but, when they split, it piled back on. Now, after 40 years of yo-yoing, she was dispirited.