Summary

Alex Jones has sued Sandy Hook families and The Onion’s parent company, Global Tetrahedron, alleging a conspiracy in their joint $1.75M bid to acquire Infowars during a bankruptcy auction.

Jones claims their bid unfairly appeared more valuable due to the families waiving portions of their payout, benefiting other defamation victims.

The bankruptcy trustee dismissed the allegations as baseless. Sandy Hook families vowed to hold Jones accountable, while the auction process faces judicial scrutiny over transparency.

A hearing is scheduled for November 25. Jones owes over $1B in defamation damages.

In 2022, New York City’s jails commissioner, Louis Molina, issued a dire warning to local lawmakers: fentanyl was pouring into Rikers Island through the mail, he said, spurring an overdose crisis among the jail’s detainees and putting guards at risk.

As evidence of the insidious threat, Molina passed around a child’s drawing of a reindeer, one of hundreds of seized items he said had been “literally soaked in the drug and mailed to people in custody.”

But that claim was based on faulty drug-testing kits with a stunning 85% false positive rate, according to a report released Wednesday by the city’s Department of Investigation. The report found the city vastly overstated the prevalence of fentanyl sent by mail to detainees.

When investigators retested 71 pieces of mail initially flagged by field tests as containing fentanyl, only 10 actually showed traces of the drug. The drawing of a reindeer highlighted by Molina was fentanyl-free.

A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public late Wednesday.

Hegseth, a Fox News personality and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, the report said.

News of the allegations surfaced last week when local officials released a brief statement confirming that a woman had accused Hegseth of sexual assault in October 2017 after he had spoken at a Republican women’s event in Monterey.

Summary

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear US v Skrmetti on December 4, a pivotal case on whether transgender youth have a constitutional right to gender-affirming healthcare.

Tennessee is defending its ban on such care using testimony from six “expert” doctors, most of whom have been discredited in past court cases as biased and inexperienced.

Critics, including medical associations, argue the ban denies life-saving, evidence-based treatments.

The ruling could have profound implications for trans rights, bodily autonomy, and state control over healthcare, echoing parallels to abortion rights restrictions.

Conservatives in Florida have moved from explosive politics to subtler tactics to uproot liberal “indoctrination” in higher education by removing classes like Sociology from core requirements.

[gift link]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today finalized a rule to supervise the largest nonbank companies offering digital funds transfer and payment wallet apps. The rule will help the CFPB to ensure that these companies – specifically those handling more than 50 million transactions per year – follow federal law just like large banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions already supervised by the CFPB. The CFPB estimates that the most widely used apps covered by the rule collectively process over 13 billion consumer payment transactions annually.

The administration claimed that blocking arms transfers would embolden Hamas — ignoring Israel’s genocidal slaughter.

Summary

Four people have died, including 19-year-old Australian Bianca Jones, two Danish women in their 20s, and a 56-year-old US citizen, after suspected methanol poisoning in Vang Vieng, a popular backpacker destination in Laos.

Several others, including six British and one New Zealand traveler, remain hospitalized.

The poisoning is believed to be linked to free shots offered at a local bar, prompting warnings from travelers to avoid local spirits.

Authorities fear a mass poisoning, with investigations underway into the source of the contaminated drinks.

From Iraq to Afghanistan to the US, basic freedoms for women are being eroded as governments start rolling back existing laws.

Just a few months ago a ban on Afghan women speaking in public was the latest measure introduced by the Taliban, who took back control of the country in 2021. From August the ban included singing, reading aloud, reciting poetry and even laughing outside their homes.

The Taliban’s ministry for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, which implements one of the most radical interpretations of Islamic law, enforces these rules. They are part of a broader set of “vice and virtue” laws that severely restrict women’s rights and freedoms. Women are even banned from reading the Quran out loud to other women in public.

In the past three years in Afghanistan, the Taliban has taken away many basic rights from women who live there, so that there’s very little that they are allowed to do.

Summary

The FDA found bacteria-contaminated water and mold at a facility making Tom’s of Maine toothpaste.

Dangerous bacteria, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Paracoccus yeei, were found in water and some toothpaste batches.

These bacteria can cause serious infections. No recalls have been issued, but the FDA has requested action from the company.

Colgate-Palmolive is working with the FDA, adding safety measures, and says its products remain safe.

Summary

The FBI arrested Harun Abdul-Malik Yener, a homeless Florida man, for plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange to force a “reboot” of the U.S. government.

Agents found bomb-making materials in his storage unit and tracked him as he prepared the attack, believing it would gain public support against government corruption.

Yener recorded messages encouraging others to follow his lead and planned to carry out the bombing before Thanksgiving.

He was charged with attempting to use explosives to damage a commercial building.

Summary

A jury awarded $98 million to the family of Botham Jean, a Black man fatally shot in his home in 2018 by former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger.

The jury found Guyger acted with “malice” and awarded $60 million in punitive damages and $38 million in compensatory damages.

Guyger, who was off-duty and mistook Jean’s apartment for her own, was convicted of murder in 2019 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Jean’s family called the verdict a message on racial bias and police accountability.

According to records filed in the case, Achtemeier conspired with mechanics in garages and operators of truck fleets to disable the anti-pollution software installed on diesel trucks.

Coconspirators who wanted to disable their trucks’ pollution control hardware system—a process commonly known as “deleting”—sought Achtemeier’s help to trick the truck’s software into believing the emissions control systems were still functional, a process known as “tuning.”

Monitoring software on a deleted truck will detect that the pollution control hardware is not functioning and will prevent the truck from running. Achtemeier disabled the monitoring software on his client’s trucks by connecting to laptops he had provided to various coconspirators. Some of the coconspirators would pass the laptop on to others seeking to have the anti-pollution software disabled on their trucks. Once the laptop was hooked up to the truck’s onboard computer, Achtemeier could access it from his computer and tune the software designed to slow the truck if the pollution control device was missing or malfunctioning. Achtemeier could “tune” trucks remotely, which enabled him to maximize his environmental impact and personal profit.

SafeRent, an AI screening tool used by landlords, will no longer use AI-powered “scores” to evaluate whether someone using housing vouchers would make a good tenant. On Wednesday, US District Judge Angel Kelley issued final approval for a roughly $2.3 million settlement to prevent SafeRent from discriminating against tenants based on income and race.

The settlement stems from a 2022 class action lawsuit filed in Massachusetts. The suit alleged that SafeRent’s scoring system disproportionately harmed people using housing vouchers — specifically Black and Hispanic applicants. In addition to violating Massachusetts law, the complaint also accused SafeRent of breaking the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits housing discrimination.

As outlined in the initial lawsuit, SafeRent’s scoring algorithm uses factors like credit history and non-rental-related debts to assign a SafeRent Score to potential tenants. Landlords can then use this score to determine whether to accept or deny someone’s rental application. The lawsuit claimed the process isn’t transparent, as SafeRent doesn’t tell landlords how it came up with a person’s score. And the system allegedly assigned lower scores unfairly for Black and Hispanic tenants, as well as people who use housing vouchers, leading landlords to deny their housing applications.

Summary

House Ethics Committee Republicans temporarily blocked releasing findings from a probe into allegations of sexual misconduct and other accusations against former Rep. Matt Gaetz, now Trump’s nominee for attorney general.

The report may be reconsidered on December 5, as Senate Republicans deliberate his controversial nomination.

Gaetz denies the allegations, including claims he had sex with a 17-year-old.

Senate Democrats have requested FBI records on past investigations. GOP allies praise Gaetz’s loyalty to Trump’s agenda.

Summary

Billionaire Gautam Adani and two executives were charged in New York with orchestrating a $250 million bribery scheme to secure lucrative solar energy contracts in India, expected to yield $2 billion in profits.

U.S. prosecutors allege Adani bribed Indian officials between 2020 and 2024, concealed the scheme from U.S. investors, and engaged in securities and wire fraud.

The SEC also filed charges, citing corruption and deception.

Adani, whose fortune is estimated at $85 billion, previously faced allegations of stock manipulation and fraud, which he has denied.

Summary

Former billionaire investor Bill Hwang was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the collapse of Archegos Capital Management, which caused over $10 billion in losses to Wall Street banks.

Convicted of wire fraud, securities fraud, and market manipulation, Hwang misled banks to secure massive loans, amassing $160 billion in stock exposure before Archegos’s collapse in 2021.

The implosion wiped out $100 billion in stock value and severely impacted banks like Credit Suisse.

Despite his philanthropy, the court rejected his plea for leniency, citing the scale of financial harm.

Summary

New York City declared a drought warning due to a record rainless streak, the first in 22 years.

The warning requires city agencies to implement water conservation protocols and encourages voluntary conservation from residents.

The drought has led to brush fires and low reservoir levels, prompting concerns about water supply and prompting New Jersey to declare a drought warning as well.

The final businessman punished for lies contributing to the $9 billion failure of a South Carolina nuclear power project must spend most of 2025 in prison and pay a $100,000 fine.

Some U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine may take place after President Joe Biden's term ends in January, Pentagon officials tell VOA, noting it will take time for certain capabilities to arrive in Ukraine.

Newly expanded financial aid will cover tuition costs for admitted students from 80 percent of U.S. families.

Summary

An Idaho doctor testified that confusion over the state’s strict abortion bans left a miscarrying patient “passed around like a hot potato” as doctors avoided treating her out of fear of legal consequences.

The 14-week pregnant woman, suffering heavy bleeding and anemia, was denied care during three ER visits before being admitted against hospital rules, miscarrying, and requiring a blood transfusion.

The testimony is part of a lawsuit challenging Idaho’s abortion laws, which ban most abortions with few exceptions, leaving patients in dangerous situations without timely care.