Board of Elections member Debbie Rauers was allegedly involved in an incident at the Savannah Civic Center on Jan. 5, 2021. Rauers is alleged to have hit Christina Magaña, a young Latina woman, with her car; telling the woman that her name was Malinda Hodges – a fellow member of the Board of Elections who is Black – and leaving the scene.

As Donald Trump’s time in the White House comes to an end, some creative folks have already begun to imagine his presidential library. A Florida man has offered Trump his trailer park as the site. And a New York City architect and a few friends recently put together a suite of slick architectural renderings of the exhibits they envisioned in the library: a “Hall of Enablers,” which includes the usual suspects, Fox News, Lindsey Graham (but nothing about the corporations that have helped elevate Trump and quietly donated to his campaigns), as well as a permanent gallery of Trump’s tweets. These stunts offer up little more than the same “orange man bad” critique we’ve heard for four years, which, as usual, rolls off Trump like water off a duck’s back, renderings be damned. But they do highlight a lasting truth about the cult of the American presidency: the idea that presidential libraries are somehow ennobled tombs of knowledge and research is laughable; in reality, they’re barely libraries.

Critics condemn idea of animated series about a man who cannot control his penis, but others have backed it

Both Democrats are on track to win in Georgia's runoffs.

Democrats are on the cusp of enjoying the slimmest of Senate majorities. Progressive judicial activists want them to use it to ensure no more losses on the Supreme Court.

With Congress set to make his defeat even more official and irreversible, legions of potentially violent supporters were on hand.

A courtyard uncovered at Machaerus is likely the place where Salome's dance was performed and where Herod Antipas decided to have John the Baptist beheaded, wrote Győző Vörös, director of a project called Machaerus Excavations and Surveys at the Dead Sea, in the book "Holy Land Archaeology on Either Side: Archaeological Essays in Honour of Eugenio Alliata" (Fondazione Terra Santa, 2020). The courtyard, Vörös said, has an apsidal-shaped niche that is probably the remains of the throne where Herod Antipas sat. After King Herod's death his kingdom was divided among his sons and Herod Antipas controlled a kingdom that included Galilee and part of Jordan. He controlled his kingdom at times from Machaerus. . Archaeologists discovered the courtyard in 1980, but they didn't recognize the niche as being part of Herod Antipas' throne until now, Vörös wrote in the article. The presence of the throne next to the courtyard solidifies the conclusions about the dance floor, Vörös wrote. The archaeological team has been reconstructing the courtyard and published several images in the book showing what it looked like around the time of John the Baptist's execution.

The game in question is a Nickelodeon-branded offering called JoJo’s Juice, named for a popular segment from Siwa’s social media channels in which she answered fan questions (and, for some reason, pour a bottle of juice over her head). The game advertises itself as being for ages “6+” but contains cards asking players to answer questions like “Have you ever walked in on someone naked or had someone walk in on you?” and “Have you ever been arrested?” and even the ones that a 6-year-old may have an answer to—like “Have you ever stolen from a store?” and “Who in this room would you most like to date?”—they probably shouldn’t be asked to answer.

The Philadelphia Eagles’ sad Sunday Night Football surrender gifted the Washington Football Team a rare playoff berth, and gave WFT owner Dan Snyder another week to not be the franchise’s top story. When the season ends the focus will doubtless go back to Snyder, possibly the world’s worst owner and definitely the world’s most consistent man. The WFT’s on-field successes this year muted the impact of Snyder’s latest and potentially ugliest scandal yet. The Washington Post, which has been lobbing newsy bombshells at Snyder with wondrous and brutal regularity lately, broke the news in late December that an ongoing NFL investigation of the owner found he had paid a former female employee of the team $1.6 million in 2009. The payment came after she’d leveled what was termed in court papers as “a serious accusation of sexual misconduct” against him. The incident occurred on a flight in Snyder’s private jet from Las Vegas after the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards. That event seems out of the WFT owner’s bailiwick at first blush. But Snyder really was an awards show mogul at that time. And, on a related and equally oddball note, he was also a thrill-ride mogul: The ACM Awards were just one of several big shows produced by dick clark productions (lower case theirs), a Hollywood firm that Snyder got control of in 2007 through a complicated and dubious transaction in which he commingled cash from Red Zone Capital Management, a private equity fund he controlled, with assets from Six Flags, the theme park chain for which he became chairman of the board from 2005 to 2010. He’d secured the lofty position by leading a revolt of Six Flags stockholders. As things turned out, Snyder’s coup of Six Flags leadership was the only thing about his Six Flags tenure that was successful. He ran the already troubled company completely into the ground and was booted out as chairman in 2010 during bankruptcy proceedings. Everything he did at Six Flags went to hell and deserved to. I’d never given a rip about Wall Street or money matters before Snyder took over Six Flags, but followed his reign of error there with awe from start to finish. And I’ve always felt he never got the public comeuppance he deserved for the disasters inflicted on the company and its stockholders on his watch. Snyder has not admitted to any wrongdoing on the flight that led to his reported seven-figure settlement with the accuser. But to have a misdeed crawl out from his theme park wreckage after all these years and cause Snyder such distress seems karmic as all get out. Snyder’s Six Flags stewardship is probably worthy of a book, but let’s dust off a few lowlights from his time there: In October 2005 Snyder got his hostile takeover started by sending Six Flags stockholders a memo urging them to throw out the board of directors then in place. In the missive he ranted that Six Flags investors would have done better financially “by hiding their money under a mattress” than by buying stock in the company under the current leadership. Snyder’s pitch, mattress visual and all, worked as well as he’d hoped. The existing Six Flags board was removed just as he’d urged, and he took over as chairman. As Six Flags boss, he would make a bedmaking company called Anatomic Global the “official mattress” provider of Six Flags. Yes, an official mattress for a theme park. The mattresses were actually available for purchase at Six Flags, with an Anatomic Global queen size going for $1,299. Snyder put Harvey Weinstein on the Six Flags board. He fired the Six Flags mascot, Mr. Six, and tried out a racist campaign in which a generically Asian character screamed, “More flags, more fun!” in a generically Asian accent. Actors who auditioned for the role said they were told to “emulate Charlie Chan,” leading the Chicago chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League to complain. The “More flags, more fun!” commercials went away and, like Joe Gibbs had done for Snyder’s football team, Mr. Six came back for a second stint with Six Flags. He oversaw the launch of Rollercoaster Cuts, what was supposed to be a national chain of Six Flags-themed haircutteries with boutique-priced haircuts for kids. As originally billed, the chain would offer “multi-sensory haircutting experience for kids of all ages” in which customers would get cuts with names including The Glammy, Zoink, Big Kapow and Blama Jama, and cost up to $50, while watching videos of Six Flags rides. Believe it or not, America wasn’t ready for such a chain: The rollout of Rollercoaster Cuts ended after outlets were briefly open in Hartford, Conn., and King of Prussia, Pa.

America’s problems can't just be manifested away. On April 2, 2020, Jeremy Haynes, owner of a marketing agency, tweeted: “If you don’t come out of this quarantine with either: 1.) a new skill 2.) starting what you’ve been putting off like a new business 3.) more knowledge You didn’t ever lack the time, you lacked the discipline” It was a tweet that spawned endless eyerolls. There are tons of Twitter users like Haynes out there—usually influencers or marketers who believe almost exclusively in the cult of individual success and claim that the only route to it is paved with self-confidence and optimistic thoughts. This type of life coach, wellness influencer, or “self-made” entrepreneur has been a part of the Twitterscape for many years, but most of the content they create is treated as non-controversial. This tweet, however, promptly unleashed streams of criticism. It could have been the timing: With most of the country less than a month into a lockdown, and many unemployed or sick or both, Americans were not in the mood to be told that they weren’t hustling hard enough. It was one of the COVID era’s first instances of Twitter users united in annoyance at unsolicited, unhelpful advice: Everyone, it seemed, agreed that simply surviving the terrifying uncertainty of the moment with physical and mental health intact would be accomplishment enough. The incident, though barely a drop in the deluge of fear, confusion, injustice, and despair of the spring and summer that followed, seemed like a signal that Americans were rethinking wellness culture and the toxic positivity associated with it. And it wasn’t the first: Early in 2020, the podcast The Dream followed up a first engrossing season exploring the world of multilevel marketing with Season 2, which focused on the intersection of wellness and marketing. Among other revelations, the 10-episode season emphasized the complete lack of U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulation within the supplement industry, and even offered up a few pearls—for instance, divulging that Gwyneth Paltrow and Alex Jones sell the same dietary supplement under different names (“Sex Dust” and “Super Male Vitality,” respectively). And in August, the Washington Post published an article that warned of the danger of “going overboard with the ‘good vibes only’ trend,” using the Haynes tweet as one of the examples. According to Natalie Dattilo, a psychologist interviewed by the Post, “promulgating messages of positivity denies a very real sense of despair and hopelessness, and they only serve to alienate and isolate those who are already struggling.” It’s increasingly difficult to ignore that the wellness industry, which is worth about $4.5 trillion globally, has thrown its cards in with corporate capitalism and distanced itself from its spiritual roots. In 2019, Ronald Purser, a San Francisco State professor of management and an ordained Zen Dharma teacher, offered a damning takedown of corporate and government co-optation of Buddhist meditation practices in his 2019 book McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality. While Purser’s most terrifying example may be the U.S. military’s mindfulness-training programs intended to produce calm combat soldiers, the main target of his analysis is corporations and startups, revealing, among other things, how they have leveraged free wellness programs to keep their stressed and overworked employees in golden handcuffs. Tactics like these have long been effective at keeping us focused on our individual concerns and blind to widespread inequities.

Vice President Mike Pence told President Trump on Tuesday that he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trump’s baseless insistence that he did, people briefed on the conversation said. Mr. Pence’s message, delivered during his weekly lunch with the president, came hours after Mr. Trump further turned up the public pressure on the vice president to do his bidding when Congress convenes Wednesday in a joint session to ratify Mr. Biden’s Electoral College win. “The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning, an inaccurate assertion that mischaracterized Mr. Pence’s largely formal and constitutionally prescribed role of presiding over the House and Senate as they receive and certify the electoral votes conveyed by the states and announcing the outcome.

All coronavirus patients in an intensive care unit in Egypt have died after the oxygen supply to the ward failed. Footage captured by one of the patient's relatives taken at El Husseineya Central Hospital in Ash Sharqia province has gone viral online. The cameraman's aunt, Fatima Al-Sayed Mohamed Ibrahim, 66, was among the patients being treated at the quarantine centre. The incident happened after the oxygen level was almost below two per cent and there was neither enough pressure nor enough oxygen to save the patients' lives. It is the second such incident to occur after patients in the ICU at Zefta General Hospital suffered the same fate. The tragedy has underscored the corruption and negligence at the heart of Egypt's ruling government.

Georgia voters broke records on Tuesday for turnout in the Senate runoff elections. The massive, half a billion dollar investment in television ads, radio spots, mailers, texts, and phone calls have pushed Georgians to the polls—if not, to the edge of their patience—since last November.  Before Election Day, more than 3 million voters had already cast their ballots, about 2 million people visiting early voting sites and 1 million more utilizing the absentee-ballot process through the mail or with drop boxes. Final turnout won’t be known until the polls close, military ballots are counted, and ballots with any technical problems are cured (that deadline is Friday, Jan. 8).

The Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake in August will not be criminally charged, Kenosha County Michael Graveley announced Tuesday.

Hawley is among a dozen members of the U.S. Senate expected to object to certification of the Electoral College votes.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler rang in the New Year-- and a new term --- by pledging a tougher stance on people who commit violence and vandalism at demonstrations.

The new session of the Pennsylvania Senate got off to a chaotic start Tuesday, with Republicans refusing to seat a Democratic senator whose election victory has been certified by state officials. Amid high emotions and partisan fingerpointing, Republicans also took the rare step of removing the Democratic lieutenant governor, John Fetterman, from presiding over the session. They apparently did so because they did not believe Fetterman was following the rules and recognizing their legislative motions. Democrats, in turn, responded by refusing to back Sen. Jake Corman (R., Centre) from assuming the chamber’s top leadership position — an unusual maneuver on what is most often a largely ceremonial and bipartisan vote.

It is extremely difficult to republish a long out of print book. I know this because I have actually done it myself. First off, a pre-computer era book was typeset by hand, so the text will not often exist as a digital file. This presents the option of either rekeying in an entire book, or else scanning in each page individually. Doing it with some sort of image-to-text OCR program only makes for introducing new problems. It’s a time consuming process and a pain in the ass. Anything beyond text such as illustrations and photographs need to be handled differently. Which is why this exquisite recreation of the 1901 Theosophist publication Thought Forms: A Record of Clairvoyant Investigation is so noteworthy. This isn’t an example of merely putting out a new version of a book, but the complete recreation of the original object as it was 116 years ago. It’s...

After touching a squad car's spotlight in November 2019, a Chicago Police officer hit Martina Standley, causing a traumatic brain injury and a crushed leg, according to a lawsuit.

A leaked internal "polling" spreadsheet from one of the country's top union avoidance firms offers an inside look into a highly secretive industry that specializes in helping employers derail union drives using sophisticated, tested, and, at times, legally questionable methods. The spreadsheet was used by union avoidance firms that tried to thwart a union drive at two Seattle hospitals owned by Conifer Health Solutions in 2019. One of the union avoidance firms involved in that campaign was IRI Consultants, which was retained by Google in 2019 amid a wave of unprecedented worker organizing at the company. On Monday, hundreds of Google workers revealed they formed a union with the Communications Workers of America.  According to documents obtained by Motherboard, IRI union avoidance consultants regularly gathered information about 83 rank-and-file hospital employees' personality, temperament, motivations, ethnicity, family background, spouses' employment, finances, health issues, work ethic, job performance, disciplinary history, and involvement in union activity in the lead-up to a union election. Each employee was then given a rating for how likely the company believed they were to vote for the union.  In the notes for one employee, IRI consultants wrote that they were "lazy," "money oriented," "aloof," "from Samoa," "tired of people on team and doesn't want to assist them," and told managers that "'the union is full of crap.'" Notes described another employee as a "follower," "impressionable," "a single mother," adding that their "rent [had] increased" and they couldn't "afford [union] dues" and "will do whatever friends do."