| President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that he feels “so badly” for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who’s been accused of sexually assaulting a woman when they were both in high school. “I feel so badly for him that he’s going through this to be honest with you... This is not a man that deserves this,” Trump said in an East Room press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda. “It should have been bought up long ago.” Trump also remarked that the FBI has performed “six background checks over the years as Judge Kavanaugh has gone beautifully up a ladder,” and lauded his nominee as an “incredible individual” with “great intellect” and an “impeccable history in every way.” Earlier Tuesday, Trump said that he did not “think the FBI should be involved” in the allegations. The Senate Judiciary Committee has invited Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, to testify at a public hearing on Monday. Ford has yet to agree to testify, according to Politico. View this cheat in a browser to see this video. |
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| Former FBI official Andrew McCabe—who was fired two days before his scheduled resignation over feuds with President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions—will publish a book this December detailing Trump’s war on the FBI. A Tuesday press release from St. Martin’s Press announced The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump will provide “a candid account of his career and an impassioned defense of the FBI’s agents” and detail “a series of troubling, contradictory, and often bizarre conversations” that led McCabe to the conclusion that “actions of this president and his administration undermine the FBI and the entire intelligence community.” McCabe was fired after Sessions claimed that he had leaked to the media and lied under oath. McCabe, a 20-plus-year FBI vet, has denied those charges. In the publisher’s statement, McCabe is quoted saying “I wrote this book because the president’s attacks on me symbolize his destructive effect on the country as a whole [...] He is undermining America’s safety and security, and eroding public confidence in its institutions. His attacks on the most crucial institutions of government, and on the professionals who serve within them, should make every American stand up and take notice.” |
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| Ever since Stormy Daniels said she was writing a tell-all book, there has been feverish anticipation about what dirt she’d reveal about Donald Trump—but it’s safe to say no one predicted this. According to a copy obtained by The Guardian, the book gives excruciating detail of her alleged affair with Trump, including one nightmarish image in which she compares the president’s penis to Toad—the incredibly annoying mushroom character from Mario. “He knows he has an unusual penis,” Daniels writes in a book fittingly titled Full Disclosure. “It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool… I lay there, annoyed that I was getting fucked by a guy with Yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart... It may have been the least impressive sex I’d ever had, but clearly, he didn’t share that opinion.” So, now you know. View this cheat in a browser to see this embedded tweet. |
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| After a former Sesame Street scribe said he wrote Bert and Ernie “as a loving couple,” Sesame Workshop, the education organization behind the children’s program, issued a statement proclaiming that the beloved characters “do not have a sexual orientation.” “As we have always said, Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves,” the statement read. “Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street puppets do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.” Mark Saltzman, who wrote scripts and songs for Sesame Street, said in an interview published earlier this week that Bert and Ernie were inspired by his own relationship with film editor Arnold “Arnie” Glassman. “I didn’t have any other way to contextualize them. The other thing was, more than one person referred to Arnie & I as ‘Bert & Ernie,’” Saltzman said. “I was Ernie. I look more Bert-ish. And Arnie as a film editor—if you thought of Bert with a job in the world, wouldn’t that be perfect? Bert with his paper clips and organization? And I was the jokester. So it was the Bert & Ernie relationship, and I was already with Arnie when I came to Sesame Street.” View this cheat in a browser to see this embedded tweet. |
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| We are celebrating our love of reading with PBS’s The Great American Read, a new television series, competition, and nationwide campaign hosted by Meredith Vieira that explores the power of books through the lens of America’s 100 best-loved novels. Do you think that you’ve read more of America’s favorite novels than us? What about your friends? Brag about how many you have read with our Book Bragging Tool. Find out your number and share it on social with #GreatReadPBS. Join the nationwide vote to choose America’s best-loved book and don’t miss this eight-part television series, The Great American Read, Tuesdays at 8/7C on PBS. It all leads up to the thrilling conclusion on Tuesday, October 23rd when the winner will be announced! View this cheat in a browser to see this video. |
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| Moments after reports surfaced that Tesla faced a criminal probe by the U.S. Justice Department over founder Elon Musk’s Twitter claim that he had secured a backer to take the electric-car maker private, Tesla stocks took a nosedive, dropping nearly $15 a share in Nasdaq trading at noon in New York. This criminal investigation will take place alongside the civil investigation the company already faces. Bloomberg News cited two officials familiar with the matter who say federal prosecutors opened a fraud investigation last month, after Musk boldly declared that he had “funding secured” for privatization—a claim that quickly garnered significant doubt. In a statement, Tesla said it received a “voluntary request for documents from the DOJ” last month and the company has been “cooperative in responding to it.” It also noted that it has not received a “subpoena, a request for testimony, or any other formal process.” |
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| The live NBC telecast of the 70th Emmy Awards Monday night brought in 10.17 million viewers, an “all-time low” and a 10 percent decrease from last year. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the previous low was when ABC hosted the broadcast in 2016, and only 11.3 million individuals tuned in. Despite the new low, the Emmys have fared better than other awards shows. Viewership of the 2018 Oscars was 16 percent lower than the previous year, and the 2018 Grammys also saw a 20-percent ratings dip. |
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| Marvel Studios has officially released the trailer for Captain Marvel, the first movie in the company’s cinematic universe that stars a female superhero, according to a Tuesday report from i09. The trailer dropped on Good Morning America, io9 noted, and was unveiled by Brie Larson, the 21 Jump Street and Kong actress who will play the titular role. The film, set in the 90’s, follows the human-alien hybrid Captain Marvel (also known as Carol Danvers) as she battles another alien force known as “the Skrulls.” Io9 reports that the film—which also stars Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, and Gemma Chan—will debut on March 8, 2019. View this cheat in a browser to see this video. |
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| A group of 21 Hall of Famers—including Joe Namath and Jerry Rice—announced in a letter to NFL leadership Tuesday that they will not attend the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony until they receive health insurance and an annual salary with a cut of the NFL’s revenue. “We, the undersigned Pro Football Hall of Famers, were integral to the creation of the modern NFL, which in 2017 generated $14 billion in revenue. But when the league enshrined us as the greatest ever to play America’s most popular sport, they gave us a gold jacket, a bust and a ring—and that was it,” the letter begins, according to a copy tweeted by ESPN reporter Arash Markazi. The letter focused on the physical and mental toll football has taken on many of the signing members: “As a group we are struggling with severe health and financial problems,” the letter explains. “To build this game, we sacrificed our bodies. In many cases, and despite the fact that we were led to believe otherwise, we sacrificed our minds. We believe we deserve more. We write to demand two things: Health insurance and annual salary for all Hall of Famers that includes a share of league revenue.” Until these demands are met, the letter adds, the signatories will not attend future Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. “It’s well-known that the NFL is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2020,” the letter stated, “and while we are proud of our role in building this league, we don’t believe 100 years of player exploitation is something to celebrate.” |
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| In a 440-page report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council Tuesday, U.N. investigators detailed a “horrendous” pattern of the alleged rape, torture, and murder of the Rohingya and other minorities perpetrated by Myanmar’s army, according to a report from The Guardian. Investigators called their findings—which included stories of women tied by their hair to trees and raped, children forced back into burning houses, and landmines placed on escape routes to kill fleeing villagers—“the gravest crimes under international law.” The chair of the investigation decried the claims, stating that “I have never been confronted by crimes as horrendous and on such a scale as these.” The report, which came from 15 months of research and interviews with 875 refugees who fled Myanmar, estimates that 10,000 Rohingya were killed in the two months after the attacks began last August, and that almost 400 villages were “literally wiped off the map.” The report called for the army to surrender to civilian oversight, and, if necessary, to be rebuilt entirely. It also called for senior leaders to be tried for genocide and other human-rights abuses. Myanmar’s leadership has denied the allegations that surfaced in a summary of the report released in August. They will have a chance Tuesday to respond to the full allegations in front of the Human Rights Council. |
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