Oakland Police Officer Matt Neff used excessive force when he allowed his police dog to maim two 18-year-old men during a search for armed robbery suspects in East Oakland in 2019, according to OPD discipline records and Police Commission records released Friday.  OPD’s investigation into the incident also concluded that Sgt. Alan Leal, Neff’s supervisor, contributed to the wounds suffered by the two youngsters by telling Neff to keep his canine “on the bite” as its teeth were clenched on one of the 18-year-olds. Neff’s canine, “Bas,” bit one of the young men for 2 minutes and 24 seconds, chewing his right leg to the bone, according to OPD records.  The teenager was hospitalized for three weeks and needed surgery and a skin graft to repair an eight-inch wound. Bites to the other 18-year-old required five staples on his scalp. His neck, shoulder, hand and thighs were also pierced by the dog’s teeth, in bites lasting a minute and 24 seconds. Neither of the 18-year-olds were charged with a crime, but they had fled and hid along with two others when officers arrived to a report of an armed robbery along Skyline Boulevard on April 17, 2019. 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office released a report Tuesday claiming to clear him of allegations that he repeatedly misused his power to help a campaign donor. Last fall, eight senior staffers accused Paxton of using the agency to benefit real estate developer and campaign contributor Nate Paul. The FBI is investigating their claims. The agency’s report declared that Paxton’s actions regarding Paul “were indeed lawful” and that all allegations against him were “either factually incorrect or legally deficient.” While the report confirmed the attorney general was personally involved in matters before his agency that involved Paul, it said there was “no evidence” of a bribe or quid pro quo. The report is not signed and its author is unknown. It is unclear why Paxton’s agency did not seek outside lawyers to undertake the investigation in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The massive Dixie Fire has burned through nearly half of Lassen Volcanic National Park on its extraordinary monthlong rampage, federal officials said Monday, leaving historical cabins and an iconic lookout tower in ruins. The park, an area of old volcanoes and bubbling hot springs in California’s remote north, was hit by the blaze Aug. 5. Flames have since moved from the park’s southern edge east of Redding to its interior, pushing into such popular spots as Juniper Lake, Warner Valley and Summit Lake. The fire had not burned the gateway town of Mineral, where the park keeps its headquarters, nor had it affected the mud pots, fumaroles and steam vents of the geothermal hotbed Bumpass Hell. The park’s visitor centers also were still standing.

You might laugh. You might cry. Or you might want to give a standing ovation to Tacos Sinaloa’s 15-inch super burrito. This is not your average super burrito, the extra fat one with rice, sour cream and guacamole that’s ubiquitous across the Bay Area. This baby is a beast of a creation that’s the length of a human forearm, made from two tortillas wrapped snugly around 2 pounds of meat, fluffy rice, beans and all the fixings. It’s frequently documented next to soda bottles and measuring tape to demonstrate its monstrous scale, or lovingly cradled in the arms of a hungry customer like a newborn baby.

Alexandra Datig, who broke off her engagement with the California gubernatorial candidate in 2015, describes a series of troubling encounters with him.

Bryan Pralta, 36, owner of Barbell Fitness in Sunnyside, Queens Most people — we usually get over 200 visits a day — are fully vaccinated. But on Tuesday a guy came in with a vaccine card that was clearly fraudulent. The paper stock is off. It’s clearly not right. I’m from New York; I can spot a scam. I just looked at it and told the guy, “This isn’t cool. I could get in trouble for this. I know this isn’t real.” That’s the one thing that scares me: If an inspector came next month because somebody snuck in with a fraudulent card, would I get penalized? I told him, “You can work out now, because it’s not officially in effect,” but come September, I want him to show me his app confirming it. I explained to him I’m not going to force him to get the vaccine — but if he doesn’t get it, he can’t come here. He said he’s scared, and I told him, “Look, I got it when it first came out, and I’m still alive.” Some of my members have sent me a picture of their Excelsior app, and I use those passes as a reference because I even saw a fraudulent app picture yesterday. I was just cracking up. It just didn’t look right. I understand the gravity of the situation with the infection numbers going up. But I’m not a medical professional and I’m being asked to basically educate people. Let’s say hypothetically, come September, I have to go through that conversation I had with the guy with the fake vaccine card with each of my members. That takes five to ten minutes. What if everybody is bottlenecked at my front desk? I lost a lot of employees — around ten. On top of that, now this is another obstacle I have to deal with.

When David Boulware read in 2020 that a cheap and plentiful drug called ivermectin had shown some promise in treating COVID-19, he was eager to study it. Vaccines were slowly being rolled out in the United States, but COVID scientists knew it would be a while before they were available in the rest of the world, where worrisome variants were already beginning to circulate. The University of Minnesota physician and infectious disease researcher had seen a few small but encouraging studies on the drug, which was most often used by vets to treat parasites in horses and sheep (and sometimes lice and scabies in people). Boulware, who specializes in running clinical trials, set up the study early in 2021 with a methodology considered to be the gold standard: the randomized controlled trial, where one group of patients receives the drug, and the other gets a placebo. In May, Boulware’s team put the word out about the study, aiming to recruit 1,100 volunteers. But then something strange happened: He began receiving hostile emails and messages on Twitter from people who fervently believed that ivermectin was a miracle cure for COVID-19 and that administering a placebo to some trial participants was therefore unethical. “Are you a reembodied NAZI Josef Mengele?” wrote one in an email. “WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Eliminate your plan to abuse people as needless controls. You have a duty of care.”

With one denied abatement waiting for a State Board of Property Tax Review decision, Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust has filed a second request to pay lower property tax on the Ellsworth Walmart for fiscal year 2021. The earlier abatement request was filed with the city in 2019 for the superstore’s 2017 taxes, and when the city Board of Appeals denied the request, Walmart turned to the State Tax Appeals Board, where its appeal waits to be addressed. Walmart seeks to cut the assessed value of the Ellsworth store from $20.1 million to $10 million. At stake is as much as $180,000 in property tax for 2017 and each year forward, if the state appeal is successful, as the new assessment would be retroactive to fiscal year 2017. The tax abatement appeal filed by the mega superstore chain has become standard operating procedure by Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust, which filed appeals for 2017 in at least eight Maine communities where it operates, using the “dark store” theory of assessment. That theory argues big-box retail superstores should be assessed as if they were vacant because of their specialty design, which leaves the properties at a low worth for subsequent buyers.

Vice President Kamala Harris' traveling delegation was delayed after the US embassy in Hanoi received a report of a recent "possible anomalous health incident," according to a statement by the embassy on Tuesday. "After careful assessment, the decision was made to continue with the Vice President's trip. The delegation will leave Singapore tonight and arrive in Hanoi, Vietnam," the statement said. As a result of Havana Syndrome incidents over the weekend, at least 2 US personnel in Hanoi will be medevacked out of the country, NBC News Correspondent Josh Lederman reported on Twitter. US staff in the country said the reported incidents included strange sounds, according to senior US officials.

A court in western Japan has sentenced the head of a notorious crime syndicate to death for killing or injuring four people.

In early July, I met with a leading Taliban military commander. I asked when his fighters would arrive in Kabul. His answer: "They are already there." How the Afghanistan mission failed and what happens next.

This “balm for the soul” is supposed to be a comedy?

So-called ‘men’s rights activists’ have long claimed divorce and family courts are run with anti-male bias. But research keeps showing that fathers now actually have too much sway, and kids are paying the price

If you still find me immature, you are just a bunch of poopyfaces.

Remember when people were doing this? Fun times. Thank God authoritarian things stopped happening.

By the most credible name in foreign policy: John Motherfucking Bolton "...Most important, we must devote maximum attention to Pakistan’s nuclear stockpiles and weapons-production facilities. If a future terrorist regime in Islamabad (or even today’s government or like-minded successors) appears ready to transfer nuclear capabilities to terrorists, we should take preventive action. This is highly unpalatable, but the alternative of allowing these weapons’ use is far worse. China must be made very aware of our intentions and seriousness, including that Beijing’s long-standing, vital assistance to Islamabad’s nuclear efforts makes China responsible for any misuse."

What we are seeing in Afghanistan right now shouldn’t shock you. It only seems that way because our institutions are steeped in systematic dishonesty. It doesn’t require a dissertation to explain what you’re seeing. Just two sentences. One: For 20 years, politicians, elites and D.C. military leaders lied to us about Afghanistan. Two: What happened last week was inevitable, and anyone saying differently is still lying to you.

The torrential rainstorm in Middle Tennessee on Saturday was localized, hyper-intense and largely unexpected. Cascades of rain inundated the region of Waverly, Tenn., located about 60 miles west of Nashville. The unrelenting storminess caused at least 21 fatalities and 40 people confirmed missing as of Monday morning. High rainfall rates prompted the National Weather Service at Nashville to issue a flash flood emergency — a flood alert for the most dire situations — around 9 a.m. Saturday. Two and a half hours later, as rainfall totals catapulted into the double digits, the office tweeted that a “catastrophic situation” was unfolding. Radars estimated that 21 inches of rain fell over the community in a single day; nine inches fell in just three hours. A rain gauge measured 17 inches of rain in 24 hours, which will set a new daily record for the state if confirmed.

Hordes of capybaras have taken up residence at a gated community, sparking a debate on the environment and inequality

Record monsoon rains have blown floodgates off their hinges as Trump's border wall breaks down.