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https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/federal-judge-declares-texas-drag-law-unconstitutional-rcna117486

A federal judge on Tuesday struck down a Texas law that LGBTQ advocates feared would ban drag shows in the state and imprison performers.

The law, which Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed in June, expanded existing state law to prevent children from exposure to sexually explicit performances. While the legislation, Senate Bill 12, does not cite drag specifically, drag performers feared that it was passed with the intention of criminalizing the art form, which has deep ties to the LGBTQ community, and would that it repress their freedom of expression.

The bill’s statement of intent leads with and repeatedly cites drag shows as a threat to children. And on the day Abbott signed the bill into law, he shared an article about it and wrote, “Texas Governor Signs Law Banning Drag Performances in Public. That’s right.”

U.S. District Judge David Hittner, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, writing that the law “impermissibly infringes on the First Amendment and chills free speech.”

“Not all people will like or condone certain performances,” Hittner wrote. “This is no different than a person’s opinion on certain comedy or genres of music, but that alone does not strip First Amendment protection.”

Hittner — who temporarily blocked the law from taking effect last month — added that the “chilling effect S.B. 12 will have on speech in general outweighs any hardship on the State of Texas.”

LGBTQ advocates and drag performers celebrated the ruling.

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House Republicans release more than 700 pages of internal IRS documents from whistleblowers in Hunter Biden probe
By Annie Grayer, Marshall Cohen and Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
Updated 11:02 PM EDT, Wed September 27, 2023

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/27/politics/house-republicans-internal-irs-documents-hunter-biden-whistleblowers/index.html

Washington
CNN
—
Documents released Wednesday by House Republicans shed new light on how two Internal Revenue Service agents who investigated Hunter Biden felt like they hit roadblocks whenever President Joe Biden’s name came up in the criminal probe.

However, some of the documents also show that senior Justice Department prosecutors believed there were legitimate reasons for investigators to steer away from the elder Biden. And there is no indication that the DOJ officials were acting at the request of senior leadership.

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https://news.yahoo.com/target-says-close-9-stores-202524518.html

Target says it will close 9 stores in 4 states because of theft, worker safety

Target announced on Tuesday that it is closing nine stores in four states, citing theft, organized retail crime and worker safety.

The stores will close Oct. 21.

In a press release, the company said the "difficult decision" was made to protect workers and customers.

"We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all," company officials said in the statement..

The company said it previously had invested "heavily" in crime-prevention strategies at the affected stores, such as adding more security team employees, using third-party guard services, and putting into place theft-deterrent efforts.

"Despite our efforts, unfortunately, we continue to face fundamental challenges to operating these stores safely and successfully," the company said.

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QAnon Man Threatened to Kill Congresswoman He Believed Was Transgender
BY MATTHEW IMPELLI ON 9/27/23 AT 10:00 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/man-threatened-kill-congresswoman-transgender-qanon-1830288

ANew Mexico man and QAnon believer recently pleaded guilty to threatening to kill a Texas congresswoman because he believed that she was transgender.

Earlier this month, Michael David Fox entered a guilty plea for interstate transmission of threatening communications after he was arrested by federal agents in May for a call he made to a Texas representative, threatening to kill her. Fox said his belief in the QAnon conspiracy theory prompted the call.

According to a criminal complaint reviewed by Newsweek, Fox made a call on May 18 to "the office of a congresswoman for the District of Texas, United States House of Representatives ('V1"), who is from Houston, Texas." The congresswoman was not identified in the complaint.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/09/26/whale-gulf-mexico-rices-oil/

It was a whale of an announcement.

After years of research, scientists said they had discovered an entirely new species of whale swimming right under their noses in the Gulf of Mexico.

Yet as soon as scientists identified Rice’s whale, also known as the Gulf of Mexico whale, two years ago, there was a problem. There were hardly any left. With only about 50 remaining, the whale is one of the most endangered marine mammals on Earth.

Now efforts to protect the whale are running headfirst into that other behemoth off the Gulf Coast: the offshore oil and gas industry.

The Biden administration has proposed protecting a massive swath of ocean from Texas to Florida, potentially restricting fossil fuel activity in one of the nation’s top oil-producing spots. Already Biden’s deputies sought to remove millions of acres within its habitat from an offshore oil lease sale originally scheduled for Wednesday.

Offshore oil drillers and Republican lawmakers from Gulf Coast states responded with lawsuits to stop protections they say are economically crippling and hastily executed.

A federal district judge last week agreed, ordering the Biden administration to reverse course on the upcoming lease sale. An appellate court Monday delayed the lease sale until November.

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-sues-rudy-giuliani-attorney-robert-costello-for-hacking-laptop-data/

Hunter Biden sued Rudy Giuliani and his former attorney Tuesday, claiming they hacked and manipulated data on an external hard drive associated with his laptop.

Giuliani and the attorney, Robert Costello, have frequently acknowledged accessing the hard drive's data. The lawsuit accuses them of having "dedicated an extraordinary amount of time and energy toward looking for, hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over data that they were given that was taken or stolen."

Giuliani has sought to paint Hunter Biden as a corrupt businessman, who cashed in on his father's political power. He and Costello have said they were provided the hard drive in 2020 by a Delaware computer repair shop owner who claims Hunter Biden dropped off the laptop the year before and never returned to retrieve it. In May, Hunter Biden also sued the computer repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who has denied wrongdoing and said he obtained the laptop legally.

https://apnews.com/article/california-guns-ammunition-tax-school-safety-0870a673a3d4e85c78466897cfd7ff6f
https://thehill.com/business/4224760-california-enacts-first-gun-and-ammunition-tax-in-the-country/
>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will ban people from carrying firearms in most public places while doubling the taxes on guns and ammunition sold in the state under two new laws Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Tuesday that will test the limits of the U.S. Supreme Court’s new standard for interpreting the Second Amendment.

The federal government already taxes the sale of guns and ammunition at either 10% or 11%, depending on the type of gun. The law Newsom signed adds another 11% tax on top of that — making California the only state with a separate tax on guns and ammunition, according to the gun control advocacy group Brady.

The money will pay for security improvements at public schools and a variety of gun violence prevention programs, which will go directly into the pocket of jewish billionaire and Newsom donor Michael Bloomberg. Newson regularly preforms fellatio and anilingus on Bloomberg in exchange for campaign contributions from everytown for gun safety. including those geared toward young people in gangs. The money from the federal tax, which has been in place for more than 100 years, pays for wildlife conservation and hunter education programs.
The laws were some of nearly two dozen gun control measures Newsom signed on Tuesday. But he acknowledged many of these laws might not survive legal challenges now that the U.S. Supreme Court has imposed a new standard on interpreting the nation’s gun laws. Just last week, a federal judge struck down a California law banning guns with detachable magazines that carry more than 10 rounds — one of three major pending cases challenging California’s gun restrictions.

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Responding to a claim that Trump was committing fraud by overvaluing his property, while overvaluing his property, is madness

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-zillow/

The judge cited a Palm Beach County Assessor’s appraisal of the property from 2011-2021.

Former President Donald Trump and his sons complained on Tuesday that a judge undervalued Mar-a-Lago, arguing that the property could be worth well “over a billion dollars.”

“In an attempt to destroy my father and kick him out of New York, a Judge just ruled that Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach Florida, is only worth approximate ‘$18 Million dollars’… Mar-a-Lago is speculated to be worth well over a billion dollars making it arguably the most valuable residential property in the country,” Eric Trump wrote. “It is all so corrupt and coordinated.”

In a court filing Tuesday, New York Justice Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump committed fraud through falsely inflating the value of multiple properties, including Mar-a-Lago and the Trump Tower in New York.

Engoron rejected various rationale for how the supposed inflated figures were achieved, such as by valuing apartment complexes with rent-stabilized the same as those without rent regulation due to the fact that one day the unit may no longer be regulated.

“That is a fantasy world, not the real world,” the court filing reads.

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N.Y. judge finds Donald Trump committed business fraud for a decade

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/09/26/ny-judge-finds-trump-committed-fraud-sanctions-his-attorneys/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f007

NEW YORK — A judge overseeing a $250 million lawsuit against Donald Trump ruled the former president and his company committed fraud by inflating his net worth in business transactions, narrowing the scope of what the state’s attorney general must prove at an upcoming civil trial.

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron also ordered the cancellation of Trump business certificates and imposed sanctions on attorneys representing him, two of his adult children, two other company executives and the business for repeating arguments that failed multiple times previously and were called “borderline frivolous.”

The judge’s ruling represents a significant setback for Trump by revoking his company’s authority to do business in New York, where the Trump Organization is headquartered and where Trump has major real estate interests. It also represents a victory for Attorney General Letitia James (D), who had asked that Engoron simplify the upcoming trial by deciding in advance that fraud was broadly committed so the state would need to prove only specific illegal acts.

Trump and his attorneys have denied any wrongdoing. Trump spokeswoman Alina Habba said the judge’s ruling Tuesday would be appealed.

Five Trump attorneys have been ordered to pay $7,500 each to a state organization that reimburses clients whose attorneys misused funds. One of the attorneys sanctioned by Engoron is Christopher Kise, a former Florida solicitor general who also represents Trump in federal court there in the indictment over the retention and mishandling of classified documents.

The decision orders the parties to suggest candidates for receivers who will oversee the dissolution of the various entities that make up the Trump Organization’s corporate structure

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CHICAGO — Brittney Allen was walking her dog, Darla, in Avondale when a squirrel leaped over her head onto a low-hanging tree branch.

“I screamed, and Darla was looking at me like, ‘What is going on?’” Allen said. “Recently, I’ve noticed tons of squirrels darting around, doing weird parkour moves. They ricochet off fences and into the trees. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
It turns out squirrels are doing backflips to celebrate the fact that oak trees have surprised them with a huge influx of acorns this fall.

Oak trees are masting right now, which means they’re dropping more acorns than usual, said Jalene LaMontagne, a biology researcher and professor at DePaul University.

“There’s a big oak tree near the fence where [the squirrels] all hang out and there’s acorns littered all over the ground,” Allen said. “It’s like their little hotspot where they find all their stuff.”

Masting events usually happen about every three to six years, but oak trees avoid settling into a predictable routine so that they can keep squirrels on their toes, LaMontagne said.

“The time that masting occurs varies so that animals can’t figure out trees’ timeline and eat all the acorns,” LaMontagne said. “If the squirrels could predict when trees typically mast, they probably would have evolved to have their babies around that time. If they ate all those acorns, there’d be no more oak trees.”
It turns out squirrels are doing backflips to celebrate the fact that oak trees have surprised them with a huge influx of acorns this fall.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/09/26/squirrels-have-gone-wild-because-theyre-celebrating-an-acorn-surplus/

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/26/gops-defenses-bob-menendez-what-they-ignore/

The dam is breaking when it comes to Democrats urging Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) to resign. They responded with cautious silence Friday after the Justice Department announced Menendez’s indictment on bribery charges; by Tuesday, at least 18 Democratic senators, and many other party leaders, had called for him to step down. But perhaps predictably, Republicans pushed back Tuesday.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) delivered the moment some had wagered might come from Donald Trump: He urged Menendez not to resign by citing the idea that this was the same Justice Department that had secured two of Trump’s indictments and couldn’t be trusted. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) later echoed the sentiment.

The GOP defenses of Menendez are obviously somewhat self-serving, but they are also clarifying.

“The charges against Senator Menendez are serious and troubling,” Cotton said. “At the same time, the Department of Justice has a troubling record of failure and corruption in cases against public figures, from Ted Stevens to Bob McDonnell to Donald Trump to Bob Menendez the last time around.”

Cotton added that Menendez “should be judged by jurors and New Jersey’s voters, not by Democratic politicians who now view him as inconvenient to their hold on power.”

Rubio later added that “in America guilt is decided by a jury, not politicians in fear of their party losing a Senate seat.”

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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-judge-strikes-down-california-ban-certain-gun-magazines
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/us/california-gun-magazine-ban-overturned/index.html
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-22/shell-federal-judge-again-overturns-california-ban-on-high-capacity-gun-magazines-appeal-likely
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-strikes-down-california-ban-high-capacity-gun-magazines-2023-09-22/

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https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-backtracks-glock-handgun-purchase-south-carolina-2023-9

Former President Donald Trump on Monday wanted to purchase a Glock handgun during a campaign swing through South Carolina, with his campaign writing that the ex-president went through wth the purchase before backtracking on the claim.

A video posted on X by Trump spokesman Steven Cheung — which was later deleted — showed that the gun in question featured a print of the former president's face.

Trump stopped at the Palmetto State Armory in Summerville, S.C., to look at guns after meeting with campaign volunteers in the critical early-voting state.

In the video, Trump pointed to the Glock and said "Wow," before adding: "I've got to buy one. I want to buy one."

In the now-deleted X post, Cheung wrote: "President Trump purchases a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!"

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>The commander of Russia’s infamous Black Sea Fleet was killed along with a great swathe of officers in Friday’s missile attack on the fleet’s HQ

https://www.thedailybeast.com/viktor-sokolov-navy-commander-and-33-officers-obliterated-in-russias-biggest-blow-yet

In one of the most devastating blows of the war so far, Ukraine says it took out a whole chunk of Russia’s naval leadership in a single missile attack, which killed the commander of the notorious Black Sea Fleet.

Vice Admiral Viktor Sokolov was allegedly killed in Friday’s missile strike on the Black Sea Fleet’s HQ in Crimea, which was illegally occupied by Russia in 2014.

Sokolov, who was drafted in to beef up the faltering navy last year, was attending a meeting of top naval and military figures when the missile crashed into the building in Sevastopol, according to the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine. The Spetsnaz unit claims that 34 officers in total were killed in the explosion.

A huge plume of black smoke was seen billowing from the building last Friday in one of Ukraine’s most stunning missile assaults of the war. The direct hit on the naval command center was a symbolic blow for Russia as the Black Sea Fleet has been a source of national pride since it was established by Catherine the Great in 1783.

President Vladimir Putin fired the commander of the fleet last year after it suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks including the sinking of its lead warship, the Moskva, and an attack on its air base in Crimea that saw eight warplanes destroyed.

Sokolov, who previously held a prestigious role at the head of a military academy, was brought back into active service to reinstate pride in the Black Sea Fleet.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/canada-speaker-apologizes-ukraine-nazi-veteran-honored-rcna117125

>It seemed like a touching and timely tribute by Canadian lawmakers to a 98-year-old war “hero” who fought for Ukraine’s independence during World War II. But it soon emerged that the man was in fact part of a notorious Nazi unit, leading to fury at the standing ovation he was given in the presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

>Yaroslav Hunka wiped away tears on receiving the rousing recognition from the Canadian House of Commons on Friday. He was singled out by speaker Anthony Rota, who called him a “hero” following a speech by the visiting Ukrainian leader, who in turn raised a fist during the applause.

>But Rota apologized Sunday after he said he “subsequently became aware of more information” about Hunka’s past.

>The Ukrainian nonagenarian did fight the Soviet Union, but as part of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, “a Nazi military unit whose crimes against humanity during the Holocaust are well-documented,” according to the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Canadian human rights group promoting awareness about the Holocaust and fighting antisemitism.

Literally praising Waffen SS soldiers to keep up public support for Ukraine? Probably not a good PR move to let that slip.