Category: Uncategorized

New York health officials are reporting at least three probable cases of a rare bacterial illness on Long Island called tularemia or “rabbit fever.” Here’s what to know.

Source: ABC News

We didn’t need yet another reminder of the grand jury’s singular importance as a bulwark against government overreach in President Donald Trump’s second term — a term in which the Justice Department has been a combination of vengeful and incompetent.

But we got one when Jeanine Pirro’s office moved to dismiss the indictment her office had just obtained against David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist.

In the motion filed Friday, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia told the court that, although her office had alleged to the grand jury that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was caused by Hearn, prosecutors later learned it was due to flawed installation by the contractor and the rush to complete the project ahead of the America 250 celebration in the nation’s capital.

The Hearn case is procedurally different from other instances that have highlighted the necessity of an independent body of citizens standing between the government and an indictment. In those other instances, grand jurors in D.C. and elsewhere have refused to approve some of the administration’s most politicized attempts to manipulate the justice system. Those refusals to indict have been so shocking because the evidentiary bar to clear in the grand jury is so low that prosecutors historically have rarely failed to clear it, certainly in so many high-profile cases in such a short period of time.

Unlike in those other cases, Pirro’s prosecutors managed to clear it against Hearn. But they might as well not have, because as they just admitted, they only did so erroneously. Their admission came as Hearn’s lawyers were probing the process that led to his indictment.

The Reflecting Pool case therefore joins the Trump DOJ’s other failures in reaffirming the grand jury’s singular significance in this era. Because even if this DOJ manages to smuggle politicized charges through a grand jury, the administration’s conduct over the past couple of years has given judges plenty of reasons to scrutinize indictments more than ever before. Indeed, grand juries will continue to be at least as crucial if Senate Republicans confirm the president’s attorney general pick, Todd Blanche, who has shown that he is willing to use the awesome power of the government for Trump’s personal ends.

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The post Jeanine Pirro’s botched Reflecting Pool case reaffirms the grand jury’s importance appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.

They are the first reported deaths linked to a massive outbreak of the intestinal illness that began in May.

(Image credit: wildpixel)

Source: NPR.

Emma Raducanu will miss the US Open as she continues her recovery from a stress fracture.

Source: BBC.

Emma Raducanu will miss the US Open as she continues her recovery from a stress fracture.

Source: BBC.

Frightening moment at Yellowstone National Park … a child was walking near a bison when the massive animal charged at him and gave chase … and it’s all on video. New footage captures the moment a grazing bison turns towards a family and runs…

From TMZ.

From The Hill

Two people in Michigan who contracted cyclosporiasis have died, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services said Monday. The department noted both people had “significant underlying health conditions that may have been impacted by cyclosporiasis and dehydration,” citing medical records. Michigan officials as of Monday have reported 11,234 cases of cyclosporiasis, which causes watery…

We want you to be a part of TMZ, so every weekday, between 10:30 AM and 12:00 PM PT, we take you inside our newsroom via live stream. You never know what you’re gonna get … a big story that breaks, an argument erupts in the room, or someone’s…

From TMZ.

EXCLUSIVE: Amazon MGM Studios’ Orion Pictures has landed rights to Howl, a horror comedy in which Kumail Nanjiani will make his directing debut and also star from a script by Madison Vanderberg. The film is in development and will be produced by Weed Road Pictures and Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon’s Winter Coat Films.  Howl follows […]

Source: Deadline.

EXCLUSIVE: Another self-published book is making the leap to the screen: Hulu is developing a drama series based on The Poison Daughter, Sheila Masterson’s dark enemies-to-lovers romantasy novel. Masterson is set to executive produce the adaptation, which is currently looking for a writer. 20th Television is the studio. In The Poison Daughter, every person Harlow […]

Source: Deadline.

The company reached revenue growth of 4.6% in Q2, following consecutive quarters of declining sales.

Source: Vogue

Farage said the talks came “quite some time after” he received a £5m gift from a Reform donor.

Source: BBC.