A Washington State physician’s assistant who mounted a “public campaign touting the use of ivermectin” for treating COVID, allegedly bullying hospital staffers to prescribe the unproven drug, had his license suspended by the state medical commission. Scott Miller runs a private pediatric medical practice in Washougal that provides services such as genetic testing, lactation counseling, and treatment for pediatric autism, ADHD, and sleep disorders. A quote from Miller on his office website says there is “there is no greater calling and joy in [his] life than helping my patients achieve wellness.” In recent months, Miller has become a presence at Washougal-area […]
Emily Shugerman
83 posts
National Football League cheerleaders are calling on the NFL to release its full report into workplace culture after allegations surfaced that coaches had secretly distributed nude photos of them by email. The emails, first reported by the New York Times Monday, were allegedly sent by then-ESPN commentator Jon Gruden to then Washington Football Team General Manager Bruce Allen (who had hired Gruden’s brother, Jay, to coach the team, then called the Redskins) and several other men. Former cheerleaders for both teams told The Daily Beast Tuesday they were horrified by the revelations, but not surprised. Both teams have been hit by […]
The email sent to hundreds of reproductive rights organizations last year contained an urgent warning: Anti-abortion groups had seized on TikTok and were gaining “extreme traction” with the platform’s young audience. “There is serious, untapped potential here, and you should capitalize on it,” it read. Perhaps even more surprising than the message was the identity of its author: a 15-year-old California high school student who was stuck home because of the pandemic and had, like many Americans, gotten sucked into the app. Another surprise: the abortion rights movement listened to her. Now, a year and a half after sending that email, […]
A Texas abortion provider has resumed providing abortions after six weeks gestation, more than a month after a law banning the procedure past that point halted nearly all abortions in the state. Whole Woman’s Health, which operates four clinics in the state, resumed providing abortions Thursday morning, after U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman issued an injunction blocking the Texas law. Founder and CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller said the clinics had already provided several abortions to people whose pregnancies show evidence of fetal cardiac activity. “Today, with Judge Pitman’s ruling, we are proud to have been part of this case,” Hagstrom […]
A young woman who claims she was sexually abused by a prominent member of New York’s Hasidic Jewish community three decades ago is going after his greatest legacy: a massive, gold-plated menorah in the heart of Brooklyn. The plaintiff, a 36-year-old woman now living in Israel, claims celebrated silversmith Hirschel Pekkar sexually assaulted her more than a dozen times in the 1990s, starting when she was 5 years old. Pekkar died this July, but his menorah—which the lawsuit describes as “one of the most important pieces of Jewish artwork of the 20th century”—lives on, displayed every Hanukkah outside the world headquarters […]
Allegations of sexual assault have triggered massive, rowdy protests at frat houses on campuses across the country in recent weeks. Now, one of those fraternities is casting itself as the victim—demanding protection and calling on school administrators to declare it an “innocent party.” The latest firestorm erupted at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst last Sunday, after someone posted on the anonymous app YikYak claiming that a student had been sexually assaulted at Theta Chi fraternity the night before. Approximately 300 people descended on the house, chanting “Fuck Theta Chi,” throwing bottles, and even flipping a car, according to video taken […]
Facebook is continuing to run ads for so-called “abortion pill reversal” a week after a report showed it had raked in more than $100,000 for advertising the unproven medical procedure. Data from the Facebook Ad library shows the tech company allowed three ads from the anti-abortion group Live Action to run in the week after the report was published; all of them claimed that “it is possible to reverse the abortion pill.” As The Daily Beast has previously reported, “abortion pill reversal” is a dubious method that has not been approved by the FDA and has been condemned by major medical […]
Internal documents from Time’s Up reveal that half of its staffers were warning of serious problems within the star-studded anti-harassment group last summer—more than a year before the organization’s very public leadership implosion. A June 2020 letter from staff members to then-CEO Tina Tchen lays out a cascade of issues that would later become the basis of bombshell reports about the group that doomed top officers, eroded public support, and put its future in jeopardy. The memo, former staffers say, should have served as a warning to the organization that it needed to make substantial changes before it was too late. […]
Rebekah Hagan was a college freshman when she discovered she was pregnant with her second child. In a vulnerable moment, swayed by pressure from the “abortion industry,” she obtained a medication abortion—a two-pill process that can successfully terminate most pregnancies before 10 weeks. She immediately regretted it. Luckily for Hagan, there was a revolutionary new procedure that could stop the effects of medication abortion in its tracks and save the life of a growing fetus. And it could be obtained by calling a single hotline. At least, that’s what dozens of ads on Facebook would like you to think. Hagan is […]
In an era in which underwear brands fundraise for Black Lives Matter and Pride month is essentially a corporate holiday, many Americans woke up Thursday wondering what the brands would have to say about the newly enacted Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks. “It’ll be very interesting to see which companies stand up for women by refusing to do business or [host] events/conferences/etc in Texas,” tweeted writer Jill Filipovic. “Good morning, which corporations have announced they’re leaving Texas because it’s no longer a safe place for their employees?” tweeted Amanda Litman, founder of the progressive political organization Run for […]
The Whole Woman’s Health clinic in Fort Worth, Texas, is usually open until 5pm. Last night, like the chain’s three other locations across Texas, it was open until midnight, caring for the waiting room full of pregnant people seeking abortions before they no longer could. Outside, anti-abortion protesters camped out, shining lights in the windows as night fell and calling the police to report nonexistent violations. Inside, a doctor who had worked for the health center for decades began to cry. This was the scene the night before S.B. 8, a law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy took effect […]
Three years after the most popular place to advertise “adult services” was seized by the U.S. government, its founders will stand trial Wednesday in an Arizona courtroom, in a case that could have lasting repercussions for the future of online sex work. The defendants, alt-weekly titans Michael Lacey and James Larkin, claim their website, Backpage.com, was a utopia for free expression, a place where “unpopular” speech was allowed to flourish and thrive. But the U.S. Department of Justice contends it was also a place where women and girls were sex trafficked against their will, with Lacey and Larkin’s knowledge. Whom the […]
Carré Otis wants justice, but she also wants change. The 52-year-old former supermodel—the one-time face of Guess, Calvin Klein, and other defining brands of the ’90s—has already brought a lawsuit against the modeling executive she says repeatedly raped her at age 17. But now she is calling on his former agency, Elite, to make sure this never happens to another model again. “I think survivors still face the same challenges [I did] when it comes to speaking up and speaking out—whether it’s a threat to their carers, to their lives, to their wellbeing,” the model, who now goes by her married […]
As a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the UAB Hospital, Dr. Akila Subramaniam sees some of the most complicated pregnancies in Alabama and parts of the surrounding four states. She has never seen anything like this. The 1,157-bed hospital has already admitted 39 pregnant women with COVID-19 so far this month. Ten of those are in the intensive care unit, and seven are on ventilators due to the disease. In a usual week, Subramaniam told The Daily Beast, the number of pregnant women in the ICU would be one or two. As of this week, there were no more available ICU beds […]
Contracting COVID-19 isn’t stopping U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) from protesting mask mandates, even as his home state has run out of ICU beds in the latest pandemic wave. “I just don’t believe in mandates from the federal government,” Moore told The Daily Beast from his farm in Enterprise, Alabama on Saturday. “If I died of COVID yesterday, I wouldn’t want to force my beliefs and opinions on anyone.” Moore, an outspoken critic of mask mandates in the U.S. Capitol, announced Friday night that he and his wife had both contracted COVID-19. He said Saturday morning that he had experienced a […]
COVID cases are so high in Orlando, Florida, that residents are being asked to cut back on water usage to save oxygen supplies for patients. The city’s Utilities Commission asked residents Saturday to stop watering their lawns, citing a “shortage of liquid oxygen linked to the surge of COVID-19 inpatient treatments.” If residents didn’t do their part to reduce water consumption, the commission warned, “water quality may be impacted.” Linda Ferrone, the commission’s chief customer and marketing officer, said the commission may be forced to issue a boil water notice if conditions do not improve. “This is another impact of the […]
Erica MacKinnon was about to log in to her virtual English literature class when she learned that her college—the school she had enrolled in, then dropped out of, then re-enrolled in 22 years later; the same school her grandmother had graduated from exactly a century ago—was closing for good. The announcement, which came in an email opaquely titled “Mills Transition,” was as shocking to her as it was to the rest of the 700-person student body—along with the staff and faculty, who had heard of the closure only an hour earlier. But soon it would be splashed across national newspapers: Mills […]
It’s called the Central Registry and Lindsay R.’s name will be on it for up to 25 years, along with countless Arizona parents accused of abusing or neglecting their children. Her addition to the list cost her a social work job and could disqualify her from getting dozens of others. Her offense? She used medical marijuana with a prescription, in a state where it’s legal, while she was pregnant—to counter the effects of a dangerous condition that causes excessive vomiting. “At the beginning [I was fighting] for personal reasons: I want to keep my job; I don’t want it on there […]
A Kentucky fertility expert best known for claiming to have cloned a human embryo is now being accused of impregnating an unwitting patient with his own sperm. The woman, Lexington resident Diane White, claims in a lawsuit filed last month that Dr. Panayiotis Zavos gave her his own sperm instead of a donor’s when she visited him for fertility treatment in 1988. (Zavos denies this claim.) White says she was referred to Zavos by her gynecologist after she expressed interest in becoming pregnant via in vitro fertilization. At the time, Zavos was working out of Central Baptist Hospital (now known as […]
A Canadian court is weighing a surrogacy tug-of-war with a twist: A woman who bore a child for a married couple wants joint guardianship of the baby because she had an affair with the father. The surrogate, identified in British Columbia court documents only by the initials K.B., says she was engaged in an extramarital relationship with the father—also identified by his initials, M.S.B.—but volunteered to serve as a surrogate for him and his wife because she “wanted to support their marriage.” After a failed attempt to inseminate her artificially, however, she claims he suggested they try to conceive naturally—and secretly […]
Chelsea Curnutt didn’t plan to spend the day before her baby was due driving 16 hours to bang on the door of her fiancé’s parents’ house, but there she was. Nineteen months earlier, she’d started Instagram messaging with Richard Kane Mansir, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army whom everyone called Kane. He was 10 years her senior, had two sons from a previous marriage, and lived 600 miles away, but she didn’t mind. He was smart and funny, and they talked easily. He liked shooting and skydiving; she loved the first and always wanted to try the latter. They met […]
The petition for a restraining order, from a woman in Spokane, Washington, is straight to the point. She and the respondent, a man named Ron Ilg, are going through a difficult divorce, and she is afraid he will try to hurt her. Asked for evidence of any harassing behavior, she writes simply: “Respondent ordered a hit on me through the dark web to be kidnapped and drugged for 7 days in an effort to force me to return to our marriage.” “I believe he would hurt our son to get to me,” she adds later. “I believe we are both in […]
In the latest addition to the nightmarish situation outside Miami, rescue efforts at a collapsed 12-story apartment complex are being hampered by a “deep-seated fire” spreading among the rubble. Officials briefing media on the situation at the Champlain Towers South, were four people died and 159 were feared missing after the tower collapsed suddenly Thursday, said they were facing “incredible difficulties” in their round-the-clock search-and-rescue operation due to the fire and smoke. As a result, they had no updates to the body count Saturday—but officials were urging residents of nearby buildings to evacuate. “This is very frustrating because we want it […]
Perhaps the most shocking accusation from Britney Spears’ searing court hearing was that her guardians forced her to have an IUD—an implanted contraceptive device—even though she wants to have children. But it didn’t come as a surprise to reproductive rights experts who say such arrangements are all too common—and even worse than what the pop star revealed. Current laws allow guardians a huge amount of power over their conservatees’ reproductive lives, according to National Women’s Law Center attorney Ma’ayan Anafi. In fact, a majority of states allow conservators to enforce not just long-acting contraception, but permanent sterilization. “A lot of people […]
On the morning of March 11, 2018, five fertility center clients received an email alerting them to an “unfortunate incident” at their San Francisco clinic. A malfunction in the tank storing thousands of eggs and embryos had caused a temporary loss in liquid nitrogen, exposing them to unsafely high temperatures. The tissue they had harvested and stored in hopes of a future pregnancy might have been permanently destroyed. This week, a jury awarded the families nearly $15 million in damages, in what may be the first-ever jury award for lost eggs and embryos. “This is a historic verdict,” Adam Wolf, an […]
After a court declared him the sole legal parent of a 6-year-old son, real estate mogul Jordan Schnitzer allegedly threatened to have his ex-girlfriend and egg donor arrested if she tried to see the boy who calls her “Mommy.” “The wool got pulled out from underneath us in a pretty big way, and I’ve got a son left wondering why mommy didn’t pick him up,” the biological mother, Cory Sause, told The Daily Beast on Monday as her attorneys planned to appeal the court’s ruling. Sause, a shipping executive, had a romantic relationship with Schnitzer in 2014 and agreed to help […]
Dr. Lorna Breen survived COVID-19, but the pandemic still ended up taking her life. Last spring, Breen—a bright, exceptionally driven 49-year-old who supervised the New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital emergency department—recovered from the coronavirus, only to be hit with a wave of depression that landed her in a psychiatric ward. In the following days, her brother-in-law Corey Feist told The Daily Beast, she kept articulating one fear: that she would lose her medical license because of her treatment. About a week after being discharged, she died by suicide. “She was convinced beyond any doubt that she was going to lose her license,” […]
The owner of a Nashville hat shop that sparked outcry online for selling gold star-shaped patches reading “NOT VACCINATED” appears to have been in attendance at the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S capitol, according to posts on her social media accounts. Gigi Gaskins, the 60-year-old owner of hatWRKS hat shop, stoked backlash this week when she posted a photo of herself on Instagram wearing the patch, which was reminiscent of the gold stars Jewish people were forced to wear during the Holocaust. The post was eventually deleted and replaced with a text post questioning why so many people were upset […]
A judge in Sanders County, Montana, on Tuesday dropped deliberate homicide charges against a woman who killed her abusive ex-husband, in a surprising win for advocates who argued she should not have to live with the threat of prosecution hanging over her. Rachel Bellesen, a 38-year-old coordinator at the Abbie Shelter for domestic violence survivors, shot and killed her former husband, Jacob Glace, on Oct. 8 of last year. Bellesen admitted to the shooting but said she did so because Glace, who had pleaded guilty to assaulting her years earlier, had twice attempted to rape her that night. Prosecutors moved to […]
In California right now, you can get an abortion without speaking to a single other human being. You log onto a website—mychoix.co—put in your health information, answer some questions, and wait for an email from a clinician letting you know if you’ve been approved. If you are, an online pharmacy will ship you a package of mifepristone and misoprostol—a two-pill regime that is safer than many prescription drugs and 98 percent effective at terminating early-stage pregnancies. You will take it, you will bleed, your pregnancy will—in all likelihood—end. This particular configuration is available in only one state, for a limited time, […]
Texas lawmakers have sent Gov. Greg Abbott a bill that would allow anyone in the state to sue over an abortion performed past six weeks—essentially turning right-to-lifers into courthouse vigilantes. The law is a twist on the increasingly popular “heartbeat” laws that ban abortions past the date that a heartbeat can be detected—usually around six weeks’ gestation. (Experts say most embryos do not have a heart at this point, and that the technology is likely picking up an electric signal flutter.) Nine states have passed such six-week bans since 2013; all have been challenged in court and have yet to go […]
Just before 8 p.m. on Oct. 8, 2020, a 911 dispatcher in Sanders County, Montana, received a strange phone call. The woman on the other end said she was calling from a gas station in Hot Springs—a tiny, rural town located on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Her voice was shaky, her delivery broken. She could not give her exact address. But one thing came through loud and clear: “I need the police,” she said. “…I killed someone.” The woman on the phone that night was Rachel Bellesen, the 38-year-old coordinator at the nearby Abbie Shelter for domestic violence survivors. The shelter […]
The abuse was a secret Tanisha Johnson says she kept for years. First, she says, she felt too unstable to report it: debilitated from the daily migraines for which she had gone to the doctor in the first place; addicted to the opioids she claims he purposefully overprescribed for her. Later, she worried she wouldn’t be believed. Who would take the word of a queer Black woman living in public housing over the word of a prominent neurologist? Who would believe that a department chairman would grope her, expose himself, even force her to perform oral sex on him—all from his […]
A Rhode Island judge is allowing three young men to return home in a rape case that has divided the small town of South Kingstown, saying their continued pre-trial detention was “neither justified nor justifiable.” The case centers on the events of March 1 and 2, where the three men and one juvenile, who was released on bail earlier this month, met up with a former classmate for a night of drinking. The 19-year-old former classmate claims she quickly blacked out and does not remember the sexual conduct that followed. Lawyers for the accused say she was a consenting participant in […]
While the U.S. has passed many happy pandemic milestones in recent weeks, Hawaii this week passed a grim one: The first child under the age of 11 passed away from COVID-19 complications in the Aloha state while vacationing with his vaccinated parents. The young boy, whose exact age was not released, began showing symptoms hours after arriving in Hawaii, according to health officials. Both of the boy’s parents had recently tested negative for COVID-19. The Hawaii Department of Health is still investigating possible sources of exposure, and it was not clear if the boy contracted the virus while traveling or prior […]
Surgeons at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago have performed the first lung transplant on an American COVID-19 survivor using the lungs of another person known to have recovered from the disease. The recipient—a 60-year-old health-care worker from Illinois—was placed on life support after being diagnosed with COVID in May, according to the hospital. He was transferred to Northwestern and spent a week on the transplant list before being matched with the donor, who recovered from the disease before dying of unrelated causes. Surgeons performed the transplant in February and announced it this week. “This is a milestone for lung transplantation,” Ankit Bharat, […]
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is trashing Facebook and Twitter’s response to the harassment of pregnant women on their platforms, calling it “out-of-date, worn-out, and woefully inadequate.” “Vague content moderation policies, ineffective fact checking, inconsistent enforcement, and meaningless labels are cold comfort to the women continuously assailed by vile anti-vaccine hate and life-threatening falsehoods,” the senator said in a statement to The Daily Beast. Blumenthal sent letters to both Facebook and Twitter last month in response to a Daily Beast report that found women who had miscarriages after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine were being targeted and harassed by anti-vaxxers on social media. […]
Late last month, the founding members of Time’s Up Healthcare held a meeting to discuss what, exactly, they were doing. The group—an offshoot of the glitzy nonprofit founded to combat sexism in Hollywood—had been largely inactive for over a year, hosting only a handful of meetings and sunsetting multiple promising projects. As the pandemic raged, and members felt less and less supported, founders had begun writing in to complain about the lack of action. The members at the Feb. 24 meeting were thrilled to see each other, and leadership tried to put a positive spin on things, highlighting multiple initiatives the […]
A Florida man who challenged police to “find the body” in his Boynton Beach home was arrested Saturday when his wife’s remains were found in his backyard. The victim, Mary Stella Gomez-Mullet, was reported missing Feb. 20, when a friend called police to say she’d last spoken to her by phone two days earlier, while Gomez-Mullet was en route to Colon’s house. The friend later revealed she had overheard Gomez-Mullet yelling, “No, no, no Roberto!” and calling out her friend’s name before the call disconnected, according to a police report obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel and local news station […]
Founding members of Time’s Up Healthcare are fleeing the anti-discrimination organization en masse over the group’s handling of explosive allegations that a co-founder brushed off complaints of sexual harassment by a co-worker. At least five co-founders of the activist group, part of the larger Time’s Up organization created during the MeToo movement, announced they were stepping down in the last 24 hours. “Bravery must be demonstrated at all times even when it’s not popular,” tweeted Dr. Pringl Miller, a general surgeon and hospice and palliative care specialist who helped found the subsidiary in 2019. “If survivors exhibit bravery in coming forward […]
A growing number of activists and lawmakers have called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to step down following multiple allegations of sexual harassment against him. Notably absent are the powerful women’s groups that supported his election. All three of the women’s groups who endorsed Cuomo over progressive challenger Cynthia Nixon in 2018 called for an independent investigation of the allegations—an arrangement to which the governor has already agreed. Two of the groups, Planned Parenthood and the National Institute for Reproductive Health, declined to discuss the matter by phone, instead sending statements via email. The Daily Beast reached the president of the third […]
An already beleaguered U.S. vaccine roll-out has hit a new snag: Thousands of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine around the country are being dumped after being stored at the wrong temperature. More than 4,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine were wasted in Maine on Tuesday, when clinics opened their deliveries to find a red X on each of the vials, signifying that the vaccine had reached too high a temperature to be effective, according to the Portland Press Herald. That same day, the Detroit Free Press reported that providers in Michigan had the opposite problem: Nearly 12,000 doses were tossed because […]
A COVID-19 outbreak, pissed-off customers, and a public fight with local government. For a resort chain that promises “a no-worries vacation,” Sandals Resorts seems to be plagued with them. Earlier this week, the Barbados Health Ministry de-listed the Sandals Barbados Resort and Spa as an official “quarantine hotel”—one of few locations where newcomers to the island can stay while awaiting the results of two negative PCR tests required to move freely around the island. In a statement, the ministry cited several “verified complaints” of COVID-19 protocol breaches at the 280-room, all-inclusive resort, and warned that it would take “similar actions” against […]
In the face of a court order and nearly 2 million coronavirus cases in the state, a California church is still planning to host indoor services for Christmas. The church, Calvary Chapel in San Jose, has been cited multiple times for breaking local health rules that prohibit indoor gatherings, including for religious services. But Pastor Mike McClure has so far refused to pay the fines or shut down his weekly 700-person services. He’s reportedly said he doesn’t even care if the violations land him in jail. “I respect the judge and I respect what the law says,” he said in a […]
Racist comments from board members. A contractor referring to undocumented immigrants as “illegals.” Failing to take staff complaints seriously. It may sound like life at a stodgy, backwards corporate office, but workers say that’s what it’s like at a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Pennsylvania. This week, the entire staff of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Pennsylvania signed onto an open letter asking Executive Director Emily Callen to step down over allegations of racism and mismanagement. More than 900 others, including several state legislators, have signed onto the document, which accuses Callen of repeating racist stereotypes and tokenizing staff and board members of […]
Millions of pandemic-weary Americans are expected to head to the airport next week and board flights so they can spend Thanksgiving with family and friends. The loved ones of Eduard Faktorovich have a message for them: Stay home. A successful former travel agent, Faktorovich was thrilled when he landed a job as a TSA agent at Denver International Airport two years ago “because that was part of his passion,” his niece, Megan Faktorovich, told The Daily Beast. Early this month, the TSA agent was diagnosed with COVID-19. His last day at work was Nov. 2. By Monday, he was dead. As […]
Fox News host Tucker Carlson opened his show Wednesday by proclaiming that “truth really matters more than ever.” What he was about to report was “not a theory,” he said, adding: “It happened and we can prove it.” But two days later, he opened with an apology. One of the voters he claimed had cast a ballot from the grave on Friday’s episode—claims that were amplified by the Trump campaign and by members of Congress like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)—had not actually done so after all. The late James Blalock of Newtown County, Georgia, whom he profiled in the earlier episode, […]
The victim was 15 years old when she says church elders called her into a room with her mother and stepfather, sat her down, and made her listen to a recording of her own rape. A lifelong Jehovah’s Witness, the girl—who we’ll call Anna—says she was sexually assaulted by an older church member on multiple occasions. But when the church learned of it, they decided to investigate not her assailant, but her—for the crime of having sex outside of marriage. And now it’s down to the Utah Supreme Court to decide if they should get away with it. The court cases […]
Last Tuesday night, as election results slowly trickled in from around the country, an eclectic group of women came together for a Zoom call. They were of all different ages, from all around the country—conservative states like North Carolina, swing states like Ohio, reliably blue ones like New York. Most of them had never met each other. But they had one thing in common: All of them had accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. Trump is the first American president to be accused sexual misconduct by dozens of women, as well as the first to be caught on tape claiming he […]
It’s still unclear whether Donald Trump will pull off the kind of poll-defying, frenzy-inducing victory he did in 2016. But this year’s election results hold another surprise victory—this time, for Republican women. While Republicans were largely left out of 2018’s “Year of the Woman,” when 126 Democratic women and just 20 GOP women were elected to Congress, they are on track for a record-breaking year in 2020. Twenty-three Republican women have already won their races so far—including six who flipped their districts from blue to red—setting them up to blow past their previous record for number of GOP women in Congress. […]
Coronavirus rates in Wisconsin are at an all-time high, but a group that calls themselves “pro-life” is attempting to block the governor’s “safer at home” order so they can continue holding fundraisers. Pro-Life Wisconsin, an anti-abortion group known for its bold stands on issues like buying Girl Scout cookies, joined with a local bar and grill owner Tuesday to appeal a court decision allowing Gov. Tony Evers’ emergency order to stand. The Oct. 6 order limits bars, restaurants, and other venues to 25 percent of their usual capacity in an effort to reduce the number of new coronavirus cases in the […]
The last few months of reproductive rights in America have looked like a cheap Handmaid’s Tale rip-off: a rushed nomination of a conservative judge to the Supreme Court; the president spreading lies about “late-term” abortions; and, in a cinematic flourish, the spread of a deadly pandemic that shuttered abortion clinics in multiple states. But amid this reproductive dystopia, abortion-access organizations have quietly introduced modern solutions to an increasingly regressive present. Abortion funds—dozens of groups around the country that help people fund and access abortions—are rolling out programs and applications to make their work easier, even as politicians to try to make […]
In the best of times, the bar exam is stressful—a two-day marathon that determines whether law school graduates will be able to practice the career they spent three years and a mountain of cash pursuing. But this year, test-takers say, it was nothing short of inhumane. Nearly a dozen graduates who spoke to The Daily Beast described the exam—which many places administered online this year, for the first time ever—as a disorganized, glitch-filled disaster. Test-takers were locked out of the exam for hours, refused accommodations for their disabilities, and even sat in their own urine and feces for fear of leaving […]
Late last month, Arizona State University placed dozens of students and four Greek chapters on interim suspension, pending an investigation of their alleged violations of COVID-19 safety protocols. The photos displayed in a local news broadcast that night—dozens of students packed together, maskless, on a boat; sorority sisters packing together for rush week—were shocking. But even more surprising was the revelation that they hadn’t been unearthed by a school administrator or the campus newspaper, but by an anonymous student Twitter account known as “ASUcovidTracker.” The account, which has racked up more than 4,000 followers in the two months since it started, […]
Just two weeks after going remote because of a COVID-19 spike, the University of Wisconsin Madison is resuming in-person activities, despite what Gov. Tony Evers described as a “near-exponential” increase in coronavirus cases in the state. UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank announced Wednesday that the 45,000-student school would return to classroom instruction and reopen some dining, recreation and library functions. The next day, Wisconsin reported the highest number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the state since the pandemic began. There were 528 hospitalizations and 2,392 new positive tests in Wisconsin Thursday, the state’s second-highest one-day case count ever. According to a […]
Co-workers say Shyla Pennington, a longtime Florida teacher’s aide, was a natural with her students—patient, kind, and committed to each child as if they were her own. Pennington, who worked for almost 20 years in the Volusia County School District, lived with her brother, Gerald Jones, a paramedic whom community members described as “selfless” and “devoted” to protecting other people. This weekend, both died of COVID-19. The progression of the disease—slow, then devastatingly fast—played out on the Facebook page of their father, Greg Jones. “Our daughter Shyla Pennington is now with God, she lost her battle with COVID-19,” Jones wrote on […]
Faced with a U.S. Treasury Department report linking him to a Russian agent, Rudy Giuliani defended himself Saturday by claiming he had no idea that Ukrainian lawmaker and conspiracy-peddler Andriy Derkach was a foreign operative. In an interview Saturday on AM Joy, the president’s personal attorney refused to directly answer questions from interviewer Jonathan Capehart about how he could have been in the dark about Derkach’s political affiliations. “You’re a former prosecutor from the Southern District of New York, a former mayor of New York City, you have a national security firm,” Capehart said. “How could you not know that this […]
The college town of Pullman, Washington, is in the midst of a COVID-19 crisis. It has one of the highest per capita infection rates in the country; the National Guard was called in to help with testing; and Washington State University asked students to stay on campus last weekend to avoid spreading the virus. And yet, last Friday, more than two dozen people gathered in the driveway of WSU Head Women’s Basketball Coach Kamie Ethridge’s house for what she later described to police as a “mini block party.” An incident report from the evening in question, read to The Daily Beast […]
The mayor of Tuscaloosa is letting bars near the University of Alabama reopen on Tuesday, even though the school just reported more than 800 new cases. In a press release, Mayor Walt Maddox citied a “positive trend” in results, saying an overall decline in community positivity rates “provides an opportunity for a limited reopening of bars which have sacrificed a great deal to protect our healthcare system and economy.” At the same time, the university reported 846 new cases over the last week—the largest increase in a single week since classes began. Maddox shut down all bars in the area for […]
Across the country, as college students return to campus with masks and hand sanitizer, fraternities and sororities are doing what they’ve always done: drinking and partying. At the University of Washington this summer, 137 students living in frat houses tested positive for the coronavirus after hosting raucous parties that violated their own internal guidelines. At the University of Alabama, students completed an entirely virtual rush process that ended with new members showing up in person to sorority houses, packing themselves together to take photos and then crowding the neighboring bars. The next week, the university announced more than 500 cases on […]
A longtime employee of the Iowa Department of Public Health claims she was forced to resign after responding to routine public records requests about the coronavirus pandemic. In a press conference Thursday after she filed a wrongful discharge lawsuit, former IDPH spokesperson Polly Carver-Kimm claimed the governor’s office chose to use information from her department “in the way that would best serve the governor’s agenda and needs.” “I don’t want to say the public’s health is in danger because of this,” said Carver-Kimm, who worked for the department for more than a decade before being ousted in July. “I just feel […]
Almost as quickly as she was installed as the FDA’s spokeswoman, Emily Miller is now out. The controversial PR maven, a former reporter for right-wing cable network One America News and vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, was removed Friday by FDA commissioner Stephen M. Hahn after less than two weeks on the job, according to the The New York Times. The FDA did not respond to a request for comment, but has removed her name from the Twitter account designated for use by the FDA spokesperson. Miller’s ouster follows a contentious week at the federal agency, after officials inflated the […]
The University of Alabama made headlines this week with the shocking announcement that more than 500 students, faculty and staff had tested positive for the coronavirus in the first five days of classes. But professors at the university say they were just as disturbed by emails from the administration telling them not to speak up about outbreaks. In an email to the politics department, professors were explicitly instructed not to tell their students if someone in a class tests positive. “Do not tell the rest of the class,” the email reads, with the word “not” underlined. It goes on to say […]
The email from the principal had a lighthearted, friendly tone, but the news she delivered was alarming: Three more students at Creekview High School in Canton, Georgia, had tested positive for the coronavirus—the fourth such letter sent to parents that week. That out of the way, she then moved on to what she called a “distraction,” noting that the high school volleyball team would be playing in a tournament the next day. “Come to CVHS to see our lady Grizzlies play at 9:00 10:00 or 12:30,” she wrote. “Go Grizzlies!” Two days later, after 25 students tested positive and more than […]
Citing health concerns, the president of the National Organization for Women stepped down Sunday, amid a flurry of allegations of racism at the nation’s oldest and largest feminist organization. In an email to the NOW board, state presidents, and staff on Sunday night, President Toni Van Pelt announced she would be stepping down with two weeks’ notice effective Aug. 28. Vice President Christian Nunes will take her place, and the board will begin the process of appointing a new vice president. In her email, Van Pelt said she had been struggling with a “very painful health issue” over the last year […]
Shots rang out in Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday as hundreds of members of dueling militia groups faced off during a planned protest against police brutality. The march was initially planned by the Not Fucking Around Coalition—an all-Black armed militia founded by Atlanta-based rapper and DJ John “Jay” Johnson—to protest the death of 26-year-old Black woman Breonna Taylor at the hands of Louisville cops. The “Three Percenter” far-right militia group also called on members to be present to act as an ad-hoc security force during the rally, according to social media posts first reported by a local radio station. Johnson said in […]
As the nation locked down for the coronavirus pandemic and some states used the virus as an excuse to further restrict abortion access, women around the country became concerned they might not be able to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. A new study suggests many of them may have turned to at-home options. The study, released Tuesday by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, analyzed the number of requests sent to Aid Access, a website that mails abortion pills to women in the U.S., between January 1 and April 11. Across the country, they found a 27 percent increase in […]
Furious that the National Organization for Women has yet to remove President Toni Van Pelt over allegations of racism, a group of state chapter leaders have started a social media campaign to push her out of office. Over the month of July, the California NOW chapter is hosting Facebook live streams with 20 other state chapter leaders who will demand Van Pelt’s resignation and discuss their experiences with racism in the organization more broadly. The point of the campaign, California NOW president Kolieka Seigel said in a recent broadcast, is to “address systemic racism within our own ranks, to uplift the […]
Gene Taylor thought he was playing it safe when he allowed preseason football practices at Kansas State University to start on June 15. It was two weeks later than some other teams had started practicing—a significant setback in the hyper-competitive Big 12 conference. Every athlete was quarantined for at least a week after they arrived, then tested for the virus. Those who tested negative underwent daily temperature checks and questioning before they could work out. For the first week, it looked like the team had pulled off the impossible: Not one player tested positive. But a few players showed up late, […]
When Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced she would sign a mask-wearing mandate Wednesday, she wasn’t just protecting her citizens—she was adding fire to a growing revolt over Gov. Brian Kemp’s refusal to require face coverings in Georgia. “Atlanta is going to do it today because the fact of the matter is that COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on our city, specifically black and brown communities with higher death rates,” said the mayor, who recently tested positive for the coronavirus, making hers the third and largest city to defy Kemp’s orders. While Kemp has encouraged Georgians to mask up in public spaces—and […]
Natalia Marques was supposed to be touring apartments with her friend this week, in preparation for her final year at Sonoma State University. Instead—thanks to a new order from Immigration and Customs Enforcement—the 25-year-old economics major spent most of Monday contemplating how to pack up four years of her life and move back to Brazil in the middle of a global pandemic. “I am so close to graduating and they are just like, ‘Eh, maybe not,’” she said. ICE announced in a Monday press release that all international students whose colleges and universities were operating primarily online next semester would be […]
Arizona set a record Wednesday for new coronavirus cases, and 90 percent of the state’s ICU beds are filled. But that’s not stopping some gym owners from ignoring new lockdown rules and opening for business—prompting Gov. Doug Ducey to launch a crackdown on rogue fitness fanatics. Ducey released an executive order Monday shutting down all bars, gyms, theaters, water parks, and inner tubing locations until at least July 27, calling the latest COVID-19 case numbers “brutal.” It was a swift turnaround from his declaration earlier this month that he would not impose new restrictions despite the growing case numbers—and many gym […]
The Supreme Court has struck down a Louisiana abortion law that opponents say would have closed all but one abortion clinic in the state and had lasting repercussions for reproductive rights across the country. The Louisiana law, known as Act 620, would have required abortion providers to have the ability to admit patients at local hospitals. Supporters said the legislation promoted safety and continuity of care; abortion-rights advocates say it was a medically unnecessary restriction would force abortion clinics to shutter because many abortion providers have been denied such privileges. In a 5-4 decision issued Monday, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the […]
Two National Organization for Women board members say the group is retaliating against them and seven others for speaking up about racism within the iconic organization. The nine board members—including all four women of color on the board—previously called for President Toni Van Pelt’s resignation after a Daily Beast investigation revealed widespread allegations of racism in the group’s chapters and national headquarters. Now, according to board members Nina Ahmad and Victoria Steele, the whistleblowers are being subjected to an internal grievance process meant to keep them from speaking out. “We refuse to be silent on this matter because to be silent […]
Nine national board members of the National Organization for Women are calling on the president, Toni Van Pelt, to resign after a Daily Beast investigation revealed a pattern of racism at the storied women rights group. The revolt comes as the organization’s black vice president says she has also been the subject of discrimination and tokenism—and was not even personally consulted before NOW sent out a statement on the death of George Floyd. “I was so upset and mad I called my mom crying,” Christian Nunes told The Daily Beast. As The Daily Beast reported this week, interviews and internal documents […]
Monica Weeks knew she was taking a risk when she ran for vice president of the National Organization for Women. She was young—29 years old—and campaigning on the first all-women-of-color ticket in the organization’s 50-year history. Her friends thought the group was old-fashioned, and her mother, an immigrant from Cuba, was anxious about her taking on such a high-profile role. But recent family events, coupled with the devastating results of the 2016 election, had convinced her that now was the time to step up. That’s how Weeks found herself in front of a sea of older white women at the Colors […]
An appeals court ruled against a Michigan barber who’s become a totem for the anti-lockdown movement—but he’s still fighting against safety precautions meant to stem the coronavirus that has killed more than 100,000 Americans. Karl Manke, an Owosso barber who has brazenly defied coronavirus shutdown orders from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, was too busy with customers Friday morning to answer questions about the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision to allow a preliminary injunction against him. But his lawyer, David Kallman—who previously defended high school students accused of posting racial slurs on Snapchat—was happy to discuss Manke’s pending Michigan Supreme Court appeal and […]
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she and her husband regret what she described as his “failed attempt at humor” when he invoked her position while allegedly asking a dock manager to get the family boat ready before Memorial Day. The conversation—which came to light when the dock manager posted about it on Facebook—was seized on by Whitmer’s opponents as an example of hypocrisy by a Democrat who has enforced stringent lockdown measures during the pandemic. At a Tuesday briefing on the COVID-19 crisis, Whitmer said she would not be responding to every report about her and her family but wanted to […]
Nearly three months into the coronavirus pandemic, and despite the deaths of more than 100 nurses from COVID-19, the majority of U.S. nurses say they are still not getting adequate protective equipment. A survey of nearly 23,000 nurses, conducted by National Nurses United between April 15 and May 10, found a whopping 87 percent were still having to reuse single-use respirator masks with COVID-19 patients. More than a quarter had to reuse “decontaminated” masks—a new and relatively unstudied practice that has been proven to work for only a limited amount of time. On top of this, just 16 percent of nurses […]
A lawsuit filed Monday describes a prominent international hedge fund as a Mad Men-esque workplace, where male traders described women as “bitches” and “cunts” and publicly rated their appearance on the trading room floor. The complaint against Advent Capital Management by former employee Courtney Robb claims the company’s top brass allowed the behavior to continue and retaliated against her when she complained. “This case demonstrates that #MeToo still has many miles to go on Wall Street,” an attorney on the case, Jeanne Christensen, said in a statement. “Female employees continue to be silenced in this male-dominated sector.” In a statement, Advent […]
A British father-of-two and a 27-year-old woman have been charged after a woman’s body was found “sawed in half” and shoved into suitcases in a forest outside Birmingham, England, according to local reports. The remains of an unidentified woman were found near a quarry in the Forest of Dean on Tuesday night, after a member of the public reported a vehicle driving erratically in the area, according to The Sun. A source close to the investigation told the paper that the alleged scene of the crime—a property in nearby Birmingham—was “like a bloodbath.” Authorities said a post-mortem examination was inconclusive and […]
Authorities said they’ve found a personal item belonging to a missing Colorado woman—the first break in a fruitless five-day search for the mom-of-two that has so far stumped investigators. Suzanne Morphew, 49, disappeared last Sunday while on a bike ride outside Maysville, Colorado. She was first reported missing by a neighbor that evening. Search crews of more than 100 investigators, eight tracking dogs and four drones, as well as members of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, South Ark Swiftwater Rescue and Reach Air Ambulance have been unable to find her. The investigation is still open, and authorities have yet to rule out […]
President Donald Trump’s Saturday morning started like so many of his mornings do: with a very early Twitter tirade. The president praised lockdown protesters harassing a local TV reporter, retweeted a cartoon depicting Rep. Adam Schiff as the Joker, and lauded a video of a right-wing columnist who was shunned by conservatives for supporting a Holocaust denier. In a spree of at least 28 tweets starting Saturday morning, Trump retweeted the video of Michelle Malkin, a former Fox News contributor who has since aligned herself with the most virulent corners of the far-right. In the video, Malkin very loudly complained about […]