Stephen Calk was found guilty on Tuesday by a U.S. jury in Manhattan on financial institution bribery and conspiracy counts.

The category is: making history. Mj Rodriguez has become the first transgender performer to pick up an Emmy nomination in a major acting category. Rodriguez is nominated in the lead drama actress category for her fierce and formidable portrayal of house mother and nurse Blanca Rodriguez on FX’s ballroom culture period drama “Pose.” It is her first-ever attention from the Television Academy.

A Florida man who was planning to have his ex-girlfriend and some of her family members killed devised a plan to pin the crime on Black Lives Matter protesters to throw police off his trail, federal investigators say. Daniel Slater, 51, of Jupiter, Fla., wanted his ex-girlfriend killed, along with the woman’s sister and brother-in-law, whom he blamed for sabotaging the couple’s relationship, court documents state. Slater believed he had found someone to carry out the job and instructed them to spray paint “Black Lives Matter” at the scene of the crime, according to investigators. Slater devised the plan as protests erupted across the country last year in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. The person Slater was trying to hire, though, turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

Anime Tube raised more than $100,000 before Kickstarter suspended the campaign.

An Oklahoma Senate candidate courted QAnon voters at a Q convention. Then he posted a pic of his daughter wearing red shoes — which QAnon believers see as a symbol of the cabal. Now QAnon is convinced he's a child trafficker.

A Tulsa pastor trying to unseat Sen. James Lankford whose campaign has openly embraced QAnon followers is now denying accusations of Satanism and child sex trafficking leveled at him by QAnon followers. Evangelical pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, who has in recent months appeared at conspiracy conferences with the likes of Michael Flynn and Lin Wood, was forced to deny involvement in “child sex trafficking, pedophilia, or devil worship” after he posted a picture of his daughter on Facebook, and QAnon supporters interpreted it as a sign of nefarious activity.

If you’re an iPhone user, the weather is always a particularly nice 70 degrees. Or 68 degrees. Any temperature but 69 degrees, actually, because it turns out that the built-in weather app on some versions of iOS — including the current version, iOS 14.6 — will refuse to display the internet’s favorite number, even if the actual temperature in a given location is, in fact, 69 degrees. It’s not clear if this is a bug or an intentional attempt from Apple to cut down on 69-related humor. The rounding is only visible in the weather app itself: clicking through to Apple’s source data from Weather.com will show the proper temperature, as does Apple’s home screen widgets.

The outlandish conspiracy theory has made legions of believers into political activists. And the Texas GOP benefits from that.

The administration’s staffing deficiencies could imperil the entire agenda. On Friday, President Biden announced a comprehensive executive order that may amount to the single most consequential day of his young presidency. In one omnibus statement, Biden called on the Justice Department, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and other agencies to implement 72 specific provisions meant to encourage competition, raise wages, and weaken the force of monopolies in the American economy. A number of those provisions mark substantial developments, and would be individually notable on their own. Biden’s recommendation on right to repair is a potential game changer for farmers, who are beholden to equipment manufacturers like John Deere and Caterpillar that functionally forbid them from repairing their own tractors, as well as for gamers seeking to modify their consumer electronics. The recommendation to drastically curtail the use of noncompete clauses, which were once used for corporate executives but now hamstring some 60 million American workers in low-wage sectors like janitorial services, represents a major transformation for the labor market as well. And the recommendation of reinstatement of the exceedingly popular net neutrality, vanquished by the Trump administration, is perhaps the biggest headline-grabber of them all. All of that, plus recommendations on patent law, surveillance, and occupational licensing are in Biden’s executive order, and more. And the overall thrust of the order, determined to protect workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs from the hazards of consolidated corporate interests, signals a dramatic change from the last 40 years of policy in Washington. Pay close attention to the language, though. As is often the nature of executive orders, Biden has recommended that various agencies—the FTC, the FCC, the DOJ—carry out these programs; the agencies themselves, which are helmed by both willing Democrats and obstructionist Republicans, have to do the carrying out. And as it stands currently, few of them are in a position to enact Biden’s orders, because Biden himself hasn’t staffed those agencies with his own personnel.

An annual ExxonMobil report shows the company routinely giving six-figure sums to Brookings, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and similar institutions.

Pictures from the celebration on 18th Avenue.

Lake Mead is at the lowest water levels in its 85-year history. Federal officials who manage the lake expect to soon declare a water shortage.

I know that it is unwise to extrapolate any larger meaning from what goes on at CPAC. These are the weirdos, the die-hards, the boat owners. If Republicans are Star Trek fans, CPAC attendees are the ones who speak fluent Klingon. But some of these fucking goofballs are elected officials.

For one man in Michigan, a home improvement project turned into a puzzling discovery, after uncovering 158 bowling balls beneath his back step.

We caught and shot Osama bin Laden in a rundown, decrepit compound, lacking any direct contact with the outside world. But in 2001, the Times of London (and the Pentagon) thought he was living in a comic villain's super fortress.

The lawmakers will head to D.C., risking arrest by leaving town during the special legislative session.

Most low-income workers still want the shot, though.

The measure bans abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. And it effectively deputizes ordinary citizens to sue people involved in the process.

Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf has been forced to make hard decisions during the pandemic, offloading assets and deposits and stepping back from some products.

A Lone Star State feline just put out an audition tape for the next Mission Impossible sequel. Located an hour south of San Antonio in...