About halfway through her Election Night shift at DJ’s Dugout, an Omaha-area sports bar, Karina Montanez looked up to see Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts smiling and laughing with a group of half a dozen women. Just one person was wearing a mask—and it wasn’t the governor, who six days later would be forced to quarantine after, he said, he was exposed to the virus at a small, outdoor dinner party. So Montanez took out her phone and started recording. At one point in the video, Ricketts—a Republican who furiously resisted a coronavirus lockdown last spring and has steadfastly refused to issue a mask mandate since—wipes his nose before reaching over and taking an infant from one of the women. “I was completely disgusted,” Montanez told The Daily Beast, referring to the moment with the infant. She later uploaded the clip to her personal Twitter account. “I have medical conditions that cause me to be high risk if I were to get COVID,” Montanez told The Daily Beast. “So seeing Ricketts come in like he was a celebrity really rubbed me the wrong way… I don’t understand why it’s so hard for him to understand what he’s doing is hypocrisy and puts everyone at risk.” But this stance had severe repercussions for the server. On Tuesday afternoon, Montanez said, her manager called her and told her upper management had seen the video and asked that she be fired. Montanez, who is a single mom, said the job, which she’s had for over two years, was her only source of income.

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, has privately hinted that President Trump would drop his objection to stripping Confederate leaders’ names from military bases, which is threatening to derail the annual military policy bill, if Democrats agreed to repeal an important legal shield for social media companies. Mr. Trump has threatened to veto the legislation, which authorizes pay raises for American troops, if it contains the base-renaming requirement, which drew bipartisan support in both the House and Senate. Mr. Meadows, according to the people, said that adding a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, considered the most consequential law governing speech on the internet, would help.

A lawsuit filed this week by a deceased Tyson employee's son claims managers at the business had bet money on how many employees would test positive for COVID-19. The company responded to the accusations Thursday, saying the employees allegedly involved have been suspended without pay and the company has hired a legal team to conduct an investigation. Isidro Fernandez was an employee at Tyson Foods' Waterloo facility. He died from COVID-19 complications on April 26. The lawsuit claims "fraudulent misrepresentations, gross negligence and incorrigible, willful and wanton disregard for worker safety." The defendants include Tyson Foods, Chairman John Tyson, CEO Noel White, President Dean Banks, President Stephen Stouffer, Vice President Tom Brower, Manager Tom Hart, Safety Lead Bret Tapken, and Managers Cody Brustkern and John Casey. Court records show that Sheriff Thompson advised the company to shut down the Tyson plant in Waterloo, but they didn't. Thompson said that the working conditions "shook him to the core" at the Waterloo facility, according to the documents.

Madison Cawthorn is 25, far right, and already plagued with allegations of racism and sexual misconduct. And he’s headed to Congress.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday announced that the State Department will ban funding for any organization it determines participates in the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, labeling such activity as anti-Semitic. The announcement was expected for several weeks and had earlier drawn pushback from civil and human rights groups that warned the effort politicized the fight against anti-Semitism and could delegitimize the work human rights organizations conduct around the world. The secretary made the announcement alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while on travel in Jerusalem and said the State Department would work quickly to identify and label organizations it views are anti-Semitic.

Nearly 2,000 communities in the U.S. and elsewhere encourage landlords to evict or exclude tenants who have had some interaction with law enforcement. [...] Some cities have taken a strict approach, adopting laws requiring the eviction of tenants accused of breaking the law. Others provide police training for landlords on criminal background checks and anticrime lease provisions.

resident Donald Trump’s reelection campaign on Thursday dropped an election-related lawsuit in Michigan, the latest development in the multi-state effort to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s projected electoral victory. In a court filing, a lawyer for the Trump campaign said the lawsuit, which had sought to stop the certification of ballots in Wayne County, Michigan, was being withdrawn because the county’s board of canvassers “met and declined to certify the results of the presidential election.” But that statement is false: The board voted to certify the results, after an outcry over Republican members who initially voted not to certify. Those two GOP members now say they want to rescind their votes. But state officials say that is not possible, and that the certification is official.

The White House drew criticism from a prominent Jewish group on Wednesday, a day after it appointed a speechwriter it fired for attending a gathering with white nationalists to a commission that helps preserve sites related to the Holocaust. Darren Beattie, who was fired in 2018, was appointed to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad for a three-year term that will last into the next administration. Mr. Beattie’s dismissal followed the revelation that two years earlier he had appeared on a panel with Peter Brimelow, the founder of the anti-immigrant site VDare, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a “hate website.” The commission, founded in 1985, is tasked with identifying and preserving cemeteries and historic buildings in Europe, including sites used to kill primarily Jews during the Holocaust. Mr. Beattie’s appointment was denounced by the Anti-Defamation League. “It is absolutely outrageous that someone who has consorted with racists would even be considered for a position on a commission devoted to preserving Holocaust memorials in Europe,” said the group’s chief executive, Jonathan Greenblatt. “We urge the administration to rescind his appointment immediately.” Asked for comment, Mr. Beattie said of the group: “The ADL pretends to be an organization that protects Jews, but it really exists to protect Democrats. As a Jewish Trump supporter, I consider it an honor to be attacked by the far-left ADL and its disgraced leader, Jonathan Greenblatt.” A White House spokesman declined to comment. Mr. Beattie’s dismissal from the White House followed years of criticism that the Trump administration has fostered anti-immigrant sentiment and ties to white nationalists.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday that the U.S. will regard the Palestinian-led boycott movement as "anti-Semitic" and cut off government support for any organizations taking part in it, a step that could deny funding to Palestinian and international human rights groups. Pompeo announced the initiative during a visit to Israel in which he is expected to make the first-ever appearance by a secretary of state in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. Pompeo said he would also visit the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war. "We will regard the global, anti-Israel BDS campaign as anti-Semitic," Pompeo said, referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

There is new and disturbing information in the alleged militia plot against the governor of Michigan. The 14 men charged had far more violent plans than just a kidnapping, according to federal and state authorities. New filings claim there was a Plan B the militiamen had drawn up, that involved a takeover of the Michigan capitol building by 200 combatants who would stage a week-long series of televised executions of public officials. And, according to government documents now on file in lower Michigan court, there was also a Plan C -- burning down the state house, leaving no survivors.

Prime minister says lasers are among ‘technologies that will revolutionise warfare’

Three years ago on a drizzly summer evening in Mount Vernon, New York, Bobby Brown was chatting with a friend on the sidewalk, waiting for his girlfriend to pick him up. As she pulled up across the street, Brown saw a trio of plainclothes police officers approach her white car. He grabbed his phone and started recording. “They harassing us all the time man, they ain’t got nothing better to do,” he said, narrating for the camera. After about a minute, the officers let her go. But instead of heading out, the officers noticed Brown recording and crossed the street. One of them, bald and muscular, got up in his face. “Let me see your mouth,” he barked, implying that he was hiding drugs there. Brown protested that he had nothing, even swallowing when the detective commanded him to. Without warning, the detective hunched over and began frisking Brown, ordering him to spread his legs. Brown, like many Black residents in the small Westchester County city, knew this detective well. For years, Detective Camilo Antonini had sparked complaints of police brutality, missing cash, and humiliating searches. But the department kept the investigator on the street, never disciplining him with more than a written reprimand in response to a civilian complaint, according to department records. So here Antonini was, groping around Brown’s legs while telling him to relax. “You feeling me, you not explaining what you came out here for,” the citizen protested. Antonini, he believed, was “just guessing”—searching him without cause in the hopes of finding something. Brown had a record for dealing, but now at the age of forty he said that life was behind him. “I don’t sell drugs no more, bro. I don’t hustle no more,” he pleaded.

A biologist decided to investigate a shrimp parade that attracts thousands of tourists in a province of Thailand.

Last week, Pope Francis' official Instagram account liked a photo of a model's butt, prompting the Vatican to investigate who's responsible for this remarkable instance of being horny on main.

It's been a big few days for a tiny bird. A saw-whet owl is recovering at a wildlife refuge in New York state after it was discovered clinging to the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. The bird was found by workers helping to transport the spruce 170 miles from Oneonta, New York, to New York City. "It's just a story out of a movie," said Ravensbeard Wildlife Center director Ellen Kalish, who is caring for the owl.

One of Twitch’s best-kept secrets is the Museum of Home Video, a weekly found-footage show advertised as “90 minutes of pure discovery for archivists, drinkers, stoners, and seekers.” That could be a commercial for the '90s adult juicebox BoKu starring Richard Lewis, a clip of Patti Labelle struggling to remember the lyrics for “This Christmas” at the 1996 National Tree Lighting ceremony, a supercut of forgotten moments in daytime television interviews. Whatever the programming is that week, it’s likely to be a collection of videos largely lost to time or memor

The Department of Justice (DOJ) plans to conduct three executions in the final weeks of President Trump’s administration and ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

How the President could endanger the official records of one of the most consequential periods in American history. Donald Trump is not much of a note-taker, and he does not like his staff to take notes. He has a habit of tearing up documents at the close of meetings. (Records analysts, armed with Scotch Tape, have tried to put the pieces back together.) No real record exists for five meetings Trump had with Vladimir Putin during the first two years of his Presidency. Members of his staff have routinely used apps that automatically erase text messages, and Trump often deletes his own tweets, notwithstanding a warning from the National Archives and Records Administration that doing so contravenes the Presidential Records Act.

A wrongful death lawsuit tied to COVID-19 infections in a Waterloo pork processing plant alleges that during the initial stages the pandemic, Tyson Foods ordered employees to report for work while supervisors privately wagered money on the number of workers who would be sickened by the deadly virus. Earlier this year, the family of the late Isidro Fernandez sued the meatpacking company, alleging Fernandez was exposed to the coronavirus at the Waterloo plant where he worked. The lawsuit alleges Tyson Foods is guilty of a “willful and wanton disregard for workplace safety.” Fernandez, who died on April 20, was one of at least five Waterloo plant employees who died of the virus. According to the Black Hawk County Health Department, more than 1,000 workers at the plant — over a third of the facility’s workforce — contracted the virus.

According to Twitter Director of Design Joshua Harris, the company’s delay to launch Stories was because Twitter was being “methodical in exploring how the format works for people on Twitter.” That’s not exactly true. Twitter wasn’t years late because it was being careful about Fleets’ development. The reality was that Twitter had prioritized work on its core product over new features. Things have been changing in recent months, following activities by activist investor Elliott Management Group, which took a sizable stake in Twitter earlier this year, along with Silver Lake. The firms did so with a plan to push the company for more innovation and new executive leadership. (The companies later struck a deal to spare Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s ousting, gain board seats, and put someone on the board with expertise in technology and artificial intelligence.)