Jamie Ross

For months, barely a day has gone by in Britain without the press exposing another party held in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s official residence while the rest of the country was in lockdown. On Tuesday, police finally confirmed they’ll investigate if any of those parties broke the law. The announcement of the investigation came the morning after arguably the most egregious report of a lockdown-busting party yet. On Monday, ITV News reported that a “birthday bash” was held for Johnson during the first nationwide lockdown on June 19, 2020. It allegedly saw around 30 people gather in 10 Downing Street for […]

For decades, politics-watchers have speculated that Boris Johnson’s ramshackle appearance and oafish manner is all an act. That, underneath it all, he was actually a calculated political operator with a unique ability to charm the public and rise above scandal to cling to power. Over the past few weeks, that theory has been quite spectacularly obliterated. His latest unprecedented humiliation came Thursday following a plot to get rid of him that was cooked up by his own lawmakers who were outraged over a string of revelations that he attended or hosted boozy parties while the rest of Britain was in lockdown—even […]

Hong Kong will put 2,000 hamsters to death as a precautionary measure after one pet shop worker and several adorable little rodents tested positive for the Delta variant of the coronavirus last week. According to the South China Morning Post, the Delta infection was detected in a 23-year-old woman who worked at the Little Boss pet shop—the city’s first untraceable Delta infection since the fall. Then, on Tuesday, 11 samples taken from hundreds of hamsters came back positive, and authorities came down very hard on the fluffy little critters. Director of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Dr Leung Siu-fai announced Tuesday that […]

The photo of Queen Elizabeth II sitting alone at her husband’s funeral last year because of pandemic rules broke hearts around the world. What we didn’t known until now is that, at the moment it was taken, the people who created those laws were hungover from a party which had raged into the early hours of that morning. The humiliation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose government has been accused of breaking lockdown rules repeatedly to get drunk together, appeared complete Friday when his spokesman confirmed that the PM’s office has apologized to the queen for a lockdown-breaking party that took […]

One of the Moab, Utah, police officers who was shown at the stop of Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie in the notorious body-cam footage taken days before Petito’s disappearance has said he feels “desperately fucked over” about her killing. Officer Eric Pratt was one of the tourist town’s cops who questioned the couple on Aug. 12 after a potential domestic-violence incident between them was reported by a concerned onlooker. The officers let them go on the condition that they agreed to spend the night apart, and arranged for a hotel room. Petito was last seen on Aug. 24, and her body […]

There was only one place to be in Britain if you wanted to have a boozy garden party at the height of the first coronavirus lockdown—10 Downing Street. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is once again facing calls to resign after ITV News published a party invite sent out to 100 people in May 2020, when people in England were still prohibited from meeting more than one other person outside. Reports say that Johnson and his wife, Carrie, were among around 40 people who attended the bash. The damning invite, unearthed on Monday, was sent by the head of Johnson’s private […]

Officials who are trying to piece together how a fire in a Bronx high-rise was able to kill 19 people—including nine children—believe a door may have malfunctioned by staying open and allowing thick smoke to spread through the building, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Monday. The fire appears to have been sparked by a space-heater that officials believe had been running for several days without a break. The building’s heating was working, officials told The New York Times, but the residents of one apartment may have used the space-heater for extra warmth. The fire was largely contained on the […]

Novak Djokovic has reportedly been refused entry to Australia following a national outpouring of rage over his vaccine mandate exemption. The world No. 1 tennis player arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday after securing a medical exemption to the Australian Open’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate—a decision that infuriated a nation where 90 percent of adults have been vaccinated yet some still can’t travel internationally or from state to state. But, according to The Times of London, the star has been stopped at border control over a bizarre visa mix-up. According to the report, a member of Djokovic’s team requested a type of visa […]

Former President Donald Trump has filed suit against New York State Attorney General Letitia James in his latest desperate attempt to disrupt the civil investigation into his business practices. According to The New York Times, Trump’s lawsuit was filed Monday and argues that James’ investigation violates his constitutional rights. “Her mission is guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent,” the lawsuit reportedly reads. However, as a “private citizen,” Trump has also invoked executive privilege in trying to prevent congressional investigators from obtaining White House […]

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may think it’s entirely OK to throw a Christmas party in the middle of an unprecedented surge in coronavirus cases—but Queen Elizabeth II isn’t about to take the same risk. On Thursday, a day after Britain recorded its highest ever number of new COVID-19 cases for the entire pandemic, driven by the mega-infectious Omicron variant, the queen announced that she was cancelling her traditional pre-Christmas lunch for the extended royal family that was due to take place next week. The queen’s decision came the morning after Johnson and his top medical advisers leveled with Brits at […]

Britain has reported what appears to be the world’s first confirmed death from the heavily mutated Omicron variant of COVID-19. There have been initial signs that the new variant causes less severe symptoms than the dominant Delta strain—but, making his announcement of the death Monday morning, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that may not be the case. Speaking at a London vaccination clinic, Johnson said: “Omicron is producing hospitalizations and sadly at least one patient has now been confirmed to have died with Omicron. I think the idea that this is somehow a milder version of the virus, I think […]

Four schoolboys have been arrested after a 12-year-old girl was assaulted at a Christmas light show in England and died from her injuries. The fatal street attack was witnessed by crowds of children. Ava White, 12, was out with her friends on Thursday night during the annual switch-on of the Christmas tree lights in Liverpool city center. According to police, Ava and her friends got into an argument with some boys after the light show had ended. The girl was then assaulted—reportedly by stabbing—and she died of her wounds at a nearby hospital. Merseyside Police confirmed in a statement that four […]

On Thursday, British scientists released the kind of news everyone’s been dreading as we head into winter—a new, more infectious offshoot of the Delta variant appears to be spreading quickly across Britain. A study from Imperial College found that the Delta subvariant—known to virologists as AY.4.2—accounted for around 12 percent of thousands of samples gathered in a recent British government survey, which is around 2.8 percent higher when compared to the figures from last month. It’s previously been suggested that AY.4.2 could be as much as 15 percent more transmissible than the dominant Delta variant, which would make it the most […]

Stanley Johnson, an obscure ex-lawmaker who became a national celebrity on account of being British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s father, has breezily dismissed a claim that he smacked a member of parliament “about as hard as he could” on her backside back in 2003. Johnson served as a Member of the European Parliament in the 1980s, then went on to become a c-list celeb as his son, Boris, rose to prominence as Britain’s most recognizable politician in the 2000s. In recent years he’s played up his posh persona with repeat appearances on trashy reality TV including jungle-based I’m a Celebrity… Get […]

In mid-October 2020, just over two months before former President Donald Trump’s supporters would riot inside the U.S. Capitol building, a group of Trumpist academics predicted that Biden supporters would cause nationwide unrest in an absolutely wild piece of fanfic that they attempted to present as a serious piece of scholarship. The report, prepared by the pro-Trump think tank the Claremont Institute, laid out what a group of self-described experts believed could happen in the event of an ambiguous election result. Titled “79 Days to Inauguration,” the report published days before Election Day claims that dozens of academics were “coordinated by […]

It’s only been three days since Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, but the Trump family has never been known to hang around when there’s a tawdry buck to make. The oldest Trump son, Donald Jr., is hawking $27.99 T-shirts on his official site with the mocking slogan: “Guns don’t kill people, Alec Baldwin kills people.” On his Instagram stories, the Trump son also posted a photoshopped pic of the actor wearing one of the Ts. It’s the latest and possibly most egregious example of Trumpworld’s celebration of Thursday’s fatal accident on the set of Rust. The […]

Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that he’ll enforce a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for every single New York City municipal worker. In his announcement Wednesday morning, the mayor confirmed that any city employee—including police officers and firefighters—who fails to receive at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine before next Friday, Oct. 29 will be placed on unpaid leave until they change their minds. The mayor announced that every worker who gets a shot before next Friday’s deadline will be given a $500 bonus. “There is no greater privilege than serving the people of New York City, and that privilege comes […]

Colin Powell, the first Black U.S. secretary of state, has died of complications from COVID-19, his family said on Facebook. He was 84. In a statement, the Powell family wrote that he passed away from unspecified COVID complications Monday morning, and added: “He was fully vaccinated. We want to thank the medical staff at Walter Reed National Medical Center for their caring treatment. We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American.” Powell was sworn in as former President George W. Bush’s secretary of state in 2001, becoming the nation’s highest-ranking Black public official to date. […]

A man described by Kenyan authorities as a “bloodthirsty vampire” who allegedly killed at least ten children, in some cases by sucking blood from their veins and leaving them to die, has been lynched by a furious mob. The case of Masten Milimo Wanjala, 20, came to its grim conclusion Friday, two days after the alleged child-killer escaped from custody hours before a court appearance over the murders of 12 and 13-year-old children. He was arrested in July over the disappearance of two kids, but officials said he then admitted to killing ten over a sickening five-year spree. Kenyan police said […]

Sir David Amess, a veteran lawmaker in the British parliament, has reportedly been stabbed multiple times by a member of the public. Sky News reports that the British MP attacked on Friday at a church in Leigh-on-Sea, a town around 40 miles east of London. He was reportedly holding a constituency surgery—a regular event where residents can lobby their member of parliament—inside Belfairs Methodist Church when an unidentified man walked in and repeatedly stabbed him. His condition is unclear. More to follow… Source link

The British government’s dithering in the crucial early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic ended up costing thousands of people their lives, according to an excoriating new report from lawmakers on how the U.K. has handled the COVID-19 crisis. The report, published on Tuesday, states that, if Johnson’s government had introduced a lockdown just one week earlier than it did, Britain’s death toll could have been slashed in half. However, the lawmakers concluded that a dangerous level of “groupthink” in the top level of government and its advisers got in the way of decisive action. To date, the U.K. has recorded more […]

On Jan. 3, days before Donald Trump’s supporters went on to ransack the U.S. Capitol, the president allegedly opened a high-stakes Oval Office meeting by complaining to his acting attorney general that he was doing nothing to help him “overturn” his election defeat by Joe Biden. The extraordinary claim was made by former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen in an interim report released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning. It concludes that Trump and his top aides repeatedly put pressure on Justice Department officials to endorse his election conspiracy theories and help him reverse the result. In one particularly […]

Donald Trump’s former White House press secretary has been trying her best to make up for years of lying on behalf of the president by spilling salacious secrets about her time working in the West Wing. But Stephanie Grisham was forced to face up to her role in enabling Trump on Tuesday morning in a brutal interview on CNN’s New Day. In a relentless line of questioning, Grisham was asked why she failed to hold a single press conference in her time as press secretary, presented with several provable lies she told, and asked if her mistruths caused deaths. Asked if […]

The CEO of Ozy Media has declared that the beleaguered company is back from the dead despite announcing it was shutting down for good last week. On Friday, Ozy abruptly announced its closure five days after a New York Times exposé suggested the company was built on deception. But CEO Carlos Watson has had a dramatic change of heart over the weekend, telling the Today show Monday that Ozy isn’t going anywhere. “We’re going to open for business, so we’re making news today,” he said. “This is our Lazarus moment, if you will, this is our Tylenol moment. Last week was […]

A day after the British police officer Wayne Couzens was sent to prison for the rest of his life for the false arrest, rape, and murder of 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard, London’s Metropolitan Police force has provoked fury by suggesting that women who feel intimidated by a plain-clothes cop should flag down a passing bus for help. The full horrifying details of the Everard murder in March only emerged this week during Couzens’ sentencing hearing. Prosectors believe that the serving police officer presented his warrant card and handcuffed Everard under the pretence of enforcing COVID lockdown rules before bundling her […]

The sight of enraged Brits lining up for hours at gas stations as panic-buying grips the nation has united Europe in schadenfreude. Chaos has descended on Britain’s urban areas over the past few days after a severe shortage of truck drivers made it impossible for gas to be delivered as normal, sparking a mass national freakout. On Monday, BP confirmed that a third of U.K. gas stations had run out of fuel and news crews showed scenes of red-faced anger in miles-long lines of vehicles, including one report from the aptly-named BBC reporter Phil McCann. The problem, according to the gas […]

Chris Cuomo had to write an apology email to his former boss, veteran TV reporter Shelley Ross, after grabbing her rear-end at a party in 2005. Ross spoke out about the incident in an op-ed piece for The New York Times published Friday morning. Ross, Cuomo’s boss at ABC News in the early 2000s, explained that she isn’t trying to get the CNN anchor fired from his job, but decided she couldn’t stay silent after seeing Cuomo “escape accountability” for advising his brother, disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, during his sexual-harassment scandal. Ross wrote that the incident happened at […]

President Joe Biden’s special envoy to Haiti has abruptly quit with a furious statement tearing into the Biden administration’s decision to deport scores of Haitian migrants at the southern U.S. border. Career diplomat Daniel Foote was only announced as Biden’s envoy to Haiti at the end of July, but wrote in a damning statement that he can’t support the administration’s “inhumane” treatment of refugees. U.S. authorities have deported over 500 Haitians in the past week after refugees set up a makeshift camp under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. In a statement reported by PBS correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, Foote said he […]

British counter-terror police have identified the suspected mastermind of the 2018 nerve agent attack against former double agent Sergei Skripal as the Russian military intelligence commander Denis Sergeev. In a statement on Tuesday, British prosecutors confirmed they had authorized a string of charges against Sergeev for the March 2018 nerve agent attack that left Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, seriously ill. A police officer was also injured and a member of the public, 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess, died after being exposed to the military-grade poison. The prosecutors recommended that Sergeev should be charged with conspiracy to murder Skripal as well as the […]

Pfizer-BioNTech has announced that its two-dose COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective in children aged between 5 and 11, in a major step toward providing school-age kids with some protection from the virus. The companies confirmed in a statement that data collected in a trial including more than 2,000 children proved that the vaccine is “safe, well tolerated, and showed robust neutralizing antibody responses.” The results come as case numbers in children are exploding—they now account for around one in every five new cases recorded in the United States. Pfizer-BioNTech will now submit the data to the Food and Drug Administration […]

The far-right, anti-Muslim, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer says she’s tested positive for the coronavirus, after suffering from severe symptoms that she wrote left her feeling like she “got hit by a bus.” In a post on the Trumpist social network Gettr, Loomer complained that she started suffering from “fever, chills, a runny nose, sore throat, nausea and severe body aches” on Wednesday that she said felt like “a bad case of the flu… So I took a COVID test and it came back POSITIVE.” She added: “I have not taken the COVID-19 vaccine, and I don’t plan on ever taking […]

Jarrad Lovison’s body was found in the bush five weeks after he went missing in Southeast Australia two years ago. In a Melbourne court on Thursday, the mystery of his death finally started to unravel. Three people have been arrested in connection to the 37-year-old’s murder. One of them, 25-year-old barista Samantha Guillerme, was granted bail in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Thursday after the court heard a taped call in which she appeared to admit she’d lured Lovison to meet her boyfriend and a second man to “have the shit kicked out of him.” The two men—named as Guillerme’s […]

One of Israel’s top anti-vaxx activists has reportedly died of COVID-19 two days after posting a final message to his followers that ordered them to “keep fighting” against the shot that could have saved his life. Hai Shaulian, who was 57, has spent the pandemic organizing protests against the coronavirus rules—including Israel’s vaccine passport scheme, the Green Pass. According to the Jerusalem Post, he lost his life to COVID-19 on Monday morning after spending one week in hospital. In his last Facebook post, the anti-vaxxer complained about how terrible his symptoms were, but remained defiant against the vaccine. Alongside a pic […]

A Chicago mom fatally shot her 12-year-old son in the head on Saturday morning in a rage over a missing memory card, prosecutors allege. Fallon Harris, 37, was charged with first-degree murder after the death of her son, Kaden Ingram, at their South Chicago home. Kaden was found unresponsive on the kitchen floor with multiple bullet wounds to his head, and prosecutors alleged in court Sunday that Harris was caught on a home security system firing the second and fatal shot. In a Sunday court hearing, Cook County State’s Attorney Eugene Wood alleged the incident began mid-morning Saturday when Harris confronted […]

During the coronavirus pandemic, Scottish comedian Janey Godley was lauded in several glowing profiles for keeping the country laughing through tough times. So much so, in fact, that the Scottish government recently paid her a reported £12,000 ($16,500) to become the star of its new public health campaign to “stop the spike” as case numbers rose again. However, the Scottish government overlooked dozens of Godley’s shockingly racist tweets—and, a day after being presented with a list of them by The Daily Beast, the government has taken no action and ignored multiple opportunities to distance itself from the outrageous comments. A glance […]

Work has finally begun to remove the huge statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia—one of the biggest Confederate monuments in the nation and one in the heart of the former capital of the Confederacy. The 21-foot-tall bronze statue of the Civil War leader on horseback will be removed from its pedestal Wednesday, 131 years after it was first erected. Photographs showed a huge crane alongside the statue early Wednesday morning as workers began its long-awaited dismantling. Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam first announced plans for its removal in June 2020—days after the murder of George Floyd—but the efforts were held […]

As Louisiana wakes up to the trail of devastation left behind by Hurricane Ida, desperate residents are sharing their addresses on social media after becoming trapped inside their attics or on their rooftops. Ida weakened to a tropical storm early Monday but the danger and destruction from the Category 4 hurricane remained. Over a million people in Louisiana are still without power and the storm knocked out 911 services in New Orleans. The hurricane, which has been blamed for at least one death, was so strong that it reversed the Mississippi River’s direction of flow. The Louisiana National Guard confirmed Monday […]

Reuters/Issei Kato The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine has been fully approved by federal regulators in a pandemic milestone that is likely to cause a fresh wave of vaccine mandates in institutions across the United States. More to follow… Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Source link

President Joe Biden doesn’t believe that the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan can be chalked up as a failure. Days after his defensive address from the White House—in which he attempted to shift the blame for the Taliban takeover to Donald Trump’s dealmaking and the Afghans’ reluctance to fight for their country—the president backed himself again on Good Morning America. Speaking to ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Biden said no one anticipated the ferocity of the Taliban’s offensive that saw them take over the country in little over the space of a week. Asked if that was a failure of […]

As Kabul woke up to its second day under Taliban control on Tuesday, U.S. military planes were once again spotted taking off and landing from the city’s international airport as the urgent evacuation restarted. Flights out of Kabul were suspended Monday after footage of the chaotic scenes—in which hundreds of desperate Afghans chased after and clung on to moving planes—shocked people around the world. The crowds had thinned out at the airport as of Tuesday morning, allowing U.S. jets to lift more diplomats and U.S. civilians out the country to safety. “Runway in Kabul international airport is open… I see airplanes […]

The man suspected of killing five people before turning the gun on himself in a mass shooting in England on Thursday night was a Trump supporter who posted about “devil worshipers” and pedophiles in government. The suspected shooter has been named locally as Jake Davison, a 23-year-old who is reported to have worked as a scaffolder. Davison allegedly killed three females and two males—including one child—in the port city of Plymouth in the worst mass shooting in Britain since 2010. Before the shooting, he expressed his support for Donald Trump on his Facebook page and posted multiple self-pitying YouTube videos about […]

Julian Assange is once again threatened with being extradited to the U.S. after a surprise decision by a British judge to re-examine potentially “misleading” evidence about his mental health. The U.S. government has been given permission to expand its appeal against the decision to block his extradition. Judge Vanessa Baraitser had ruled in January that the WikiLeaks founder could not be extradited from Britain to the U.S. to face charges over the release of secret military documents because of a potential suicide risk. However, on Wednesday, Lord Justice Holroyde sided with U.S. lawyers in a challenge to Baraitser’s decision, saying that […]

The owner of a Southern California surf school has been arrested for allegedly stabbing and killing his two kids—aged 1 and 3—after taking them over the border to Mexico without telling his wife where he was going. Matthew Taylor Coleman, 40, was detained Tuesday when he attempted to re-enter the United States one day after the bodies of his children were found at a ranch near Rosarito in Baja California. Hiram Sanchez, Baja California’s attorney general, told reporters that the 3-year-old boy was stabbed 12 times. The 1-year-old girl was stabbed 17 times. A blood-stained wooden stake was found at the […]

A British embassy staffer has been detained in Germany after allegedly being caught selling documents to Russian intelligence agents. The man, who has only been identified as ‘David S,’ was arrested Tuesday after being trailed by both British and German authorities. German federal prosecutors described the man as a 57-year-old employee at the British Embassy in Germany’s capital, Berlin, and alleged that he received an unspecified amount of money to hand papers to Russia. “On at least one occasion he forwarded documents obtained in the course of his professional activities to a representative of a Russian intelligence service,” German federal prosecutors […]

Brittany Commisso has spoken out for the first time since filing a criminal complaint against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week, telling CBS News that the governor turned her dream job into a “nightmare.” Commisso is one of the 11 women who Cuomo was accused of sexually harassing in a damning report by New York State Attorney General Letitia James. She was identified only as “Executive Assistant #1” in the report, but decided to speak out in a shocking interview on This Morning after hearing Cuomo deny the multiple allegations against him. Commisso, 32, started working as an executive assistant […]

The co-founder of Australia-based Christian megachurch Hillsong has been charged with covering up his late father’s historic child sex abuse. Brian Houston, 67, has denied for years that he held back information relating to his dad’s offenses. He’s faced scrutiny over the case since 2014, when Australia’s royal commission into child sexual abuse heard that pastor Frank Houston—who died in 2004, before the shocking allegations against him were made public—abused multiple boys in the 1970s. Police in New South Wales confirmed Thursday they had charged Houston with knowingly concealing information related to child sexual offenses. A statement from the force read: […]

When the bronze was draped around Simone Biles earlier this week, everyone thought it could be the end of one of the greatest Olympic medal runs of all time. But it seems like she might not be done quite yet. Tokyo 2020 didn’t go as planned for world’s greatest ever gymnast. She pulled herself out of a string of events after struggling with her mental health, and fought back for the bronze in Tuesday’s beams final, winning praise around the world for her perseverance and strength. Before heading back home, Biles sat down for some media appearances, and told the Today […]

It’s totally fair for Olympic athletes to blow off some steam after weeks of physical and mental punishment at a mid-pandemic Games, but it looks like two Australian teams have taken things a little too far. Australia’s mens soccer and rugby teams are in deep trouble after causing what sounds like the flight from hell back from Tokyo 2020. Passengers have complained that they suffered a wild 10-hour journey from Tokyo to Sydney last week which reportedly saw the Olympians get wasted, scream their heads off, and throw up in the bathroom—all while maskless. Furious travelers told News Corp that the […]

A week ago, hours ahead of England’s brutal defeat in the Euro soccer championship, a viral video showed a man inserting a lit flare into his butt crack and celebrating as red smoke billowed around his pale buttocks. If you were on the lookout for a decent analogy for what Prime Minister Boris Johnson has undertaken this Monday, that eyeball-scorching scene of one man’s fleeting euphoria caused by an entirely unnecessary act that could have blown his own ass out of action forever is just the job. In England, Monday has been dubbed “Freedom Day,” when the vast majority of pandemic […]

A complex and deadly crime spree in Tucson, Arizona, saw a suspect set fire to a house, shoot at multiple emergency responders, and kill two people, police say. Two or three children are also believed to be missing. The Sunday rampage unfolded at three different crime scenes. Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus said the fire department was dispatched to a blaze mid-afternoon, and, at “pretty much” the same time, EMTs were sent to a medical emergency at a park near the scene of the fire. According to Magnus, the suspect got out of his silver SUV at the park and unloaded […]

For years, there have been whispers that the Russian government holds compromising materials on Donald Trump. Now, an alleged leak from the heart of the Kremlin appears to show them boasting about kompromat. The supposed leak obtained by The Guardian reportedly states that President Vladimir Putin personally approved a nefarious plan to throw Russia’s support behind Trump’s 2016 campaign. The document states that Putin, his spy chiefs, and top ministers agreed that a victory for a “mentally unstable” Trump would permanently weaken the United States. The document also reportedly states that the Kremlin has so-called kompromat on Trump. It cryptically refers […]

Over the last few months, the theory that the novel coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory has been gathering momentum after initially being ridiculed as a zany example of tinfoil-hattery last year—but a group of scientists have had enough of the growing speculation. Writing for The Lancet, the same group of researchers who in February 2020 described the lab leak idea as a baseless conspiracy theory said that they haven’t changed their minds. In fact, they state that recent studies have only bolstered their belief that the virus evolved naturally. The lab leak theory has snowballed this year, particularly after President […]

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones has turned down a teaching job at the University of North Carolina after a long fight to be offered tenure. Speaking on CBS This Morning, Hannah-Jones announced that she would instead take up the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at Howard University. Explaining her decision, Hannah-Jones said: “It was a very difficult decision, not a decision I wanted to make… Look what it took to get tenure. This was a position that, since the 1980s, came with tenure… Every other chair before me, who also happened to be white, received that position with […]

Sha’Carri Richardson—the track star who was dramatically suspended from the U.S. Olympic team this week after failing a drug test for marijuana—has spoken out about her heartbreak, telling NBC News that she turned to pot to cope after a reporter told her that her biological mom had died. Richardson was interviewed on Today on Friday morning, and was quick to take responsibility for her actions—but explained that she was trying to cope with the “emotional panic” of learning about her biological mother’s death during a media appearance days before her Olympic trials. “I was just thinking it would be a normal […]

In recent weeks, over 1,000 unmarked graves for Indigenous children have been discovered at former residential schools in Canada—and a wave of anger is sweeping over the nation as it confronts its dark past. On Thursday, it was Canada Day, which is usually a day of celebration to mark the founding of the nation in the 1800s. But, this year, it was a day of protest and unrest, which saw prominent statues of the British monarchs—Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II—pulled from their pedestals. Video showed protesters cheering as the Victoria statue outside the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg was dragged […]

At least 159 people remain missing 24 hours after an entire side of a condo block abruptly collapsed on the southeast Florida coastline on Thursday, according to Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. Speaking on Friday morning, the mayor confirmed that the death toll from the disaster now stands at four—but she made it clear that the number is certain to rise over the coming hours and days. The early morning building collapse in Surfside, just north of Miami Beach, saw over 50 apartment units in the high-rise block come crashing to the ground. “Unfortunately, this has been a tragic night,” she […]

In March 1987, the body of successful private investigator Daniel Morgan was discovered in a London pub car park after an axe had been driven deep into his skull. Despite five police investigations in the 34 years since, no one has ever been brought to justice over the murder—but, on Tuesday, Morgan’s family finally started to get some answers. A damning report from an independent panel—released Tuesday after eight years of work—has accused the London’s Metropolitan Police of “a form of institutional corruption” which saw it trying to “protect itself” by failing to acknowledge its repeated missteps in Britain’s biggest unsolved […]

Days after the U.S. election, an old clip of Joe Biden went viral in the United Kingdom as people pondered what the end of the Trump era would mean for relations between Britain and America. “Mr. Biden, a quick word for the BBC,” a plummy voiced reporter could be heard saying. “The BBC?” Biden asked, before responding with a cheeky smile: “I’m Irish.” To most viewers in Britain, it was seen as what it was—Biden’s jokey way of brushing off a reporter that he couldn’t be bothered talking to. But to the pro-Brexit crowd, many of whom had sworn allegiance to […]

A high-ranking member of the Japan Olympic Committee (JOC) has reportedly taken his own life six weeks out from the start of the Games. The Tokyo Games are set to begin—a year late—on July 23, but the Japanese public has repeatedly voiced its strong opposition to the event taking place while the country is suffering from a surge in coronavirus cases, while a string of scandals has hit the organizers. The official has been identified in Japanese media as 52-year-old Yasushi Moriya, who is reported to have been hit by a subway train early on Monday morning. Nippon TV, citing unnamed […]

Joe Biden will make his first overseas trip as president next week—and it’ll include a trip to visit Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. The British Royal Family announced the meeting Thursday morning, posting a photo of the castle on its social pages with the message: “The Queen will meet the President of the United States of America and First Lady Jill Biden at Windsor Castle on Sunday, 13th June 2021.” Biden is traveling to the United Kingdom to attend the G7 summit in Cornwall, England with other world leaders. That will be immediately followed by a trip to Belgium for […]

Having just watched Senate Republicans vote down an independent commission to investigate the Capitol insurrection that killed her longtime partner, Officer Brian Sicknick, Sandra Garza is understandably angry. And she blames one man over all others: Donald Trump. Garza spoke to CBS News just days after Republican senators ignored her pleas to support the bipartisan commission. Garza and Sicknick’s mother, Gladys, met with over a dozen GOP senators in Congress last week in the hope of persuading them to vote in favor of the commission, but it soon became clear that not enough of them would change their minds. The bill […]

Back in the depths of winter, Boris Johnson promised people in England that they would be able to celebrate Christmas with their families, only for his overambitious plans to be wrecked by a new coronavirus variant that rapidly spread across the nation to become the dominant strain. Now, less than four weeks from the date when the prime minister promised that all legal pandemic restrictions would be lifted for good, he has warned people to brace for bitter disappointment once again. Despite a hugely successful vaccination rollout—that, to date, has seen 38 million people receive at least one dose—a new variant […]

Michael Lewis, the financial journalist and author of Moneyball, The Big Short, The Fifth Risk, and the current bestseller The Premonition, has confirmed that his 19-year-old daughter was killed with her boyfriend in a head-on car crash this week. Dixie Lewis, 19, and Ross Schultz, 20, were both pronounced dead at the scene of the Tuesday afternoon collision near Truckee, California. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Schultz was driving the car when it crossed lanes and collided with a Freightliner semi-truck. The 45-year-old truck driver is said to have had minor injuries. In a devastating statement, Michael Lewis told news […]

One of Britain’s most well-known Black Lives Matter activists is fighting for her life in a hospital after being shot in the head at a London house party. Sasha Johnson, 27, became a familiar face as an organizer and speaker at the anti-racism demonstrations that spread from the United States to Britain last summer. The political group she co-founded, the Taking the Initiative Party, said in a statement that Johnson was shot early Sunday morning, and said the attack came after “numerous death threats” against her—although police say they have no evidence of a credible threat. “Sasha has always been actively […]

If you’d given up hope of an overseas trip this summer, the European Union is here to offer a glimmer of hope—all 27 countries are set to open their doors to vaccinated Americans in time for peak tourist season. Ambassadors from each state—including vacation hotspots such as Italy, Spain, and France—agreed to a new set of rules Wednesday. They say that, as long as someone has taken all of the shots of any of the vaccines that are approved in the United States, they can come visit, after more than a year of travel to most European nations being hugely restricted. […]

Joel Greenberg, the former Florida county tax collector and righthand man of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), will plead guilty to sex trafficking as part of his plea deal with the Justice Department, according to Insider. It was reported Thursday that Greenberg was ready to plead guilty to some of the initial string of 33 charges against him. Now, Insider reports that the charge sheet has been shrunk down to just six as part of his plea deal. Charges are said to include sex-trafficking, wire fraud, and identity theft. The agreement will come as deeply unwelcome news for Gaetz, who is under […]

Twenty-one media outlets were reportedly destroyed this week as Israel pummelled Gaza with airstrikes that obliterated two tower blocks. The Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have been blamed for the vast majority of deaths in the rapidly worsening conflict. According to the Associated Press, 83 Palestinians—including 17 children—have now been killed, and seven people have been reported dead in Israel. Violence broke out overnight with multiple videos showing rival Arab and Jewish mobs dragging people out of their cars and attacking them on the streets. The non-profit Reporters Without Borders said in a statement that it believes 21 media outlets had their […]

The third-holiest site in Islam—the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem—was turned into a chaotic battlefield Monday as Israeli police responded violently to Palestinian protesters, injuring more than 300 people. In recent days, Jerusalem has been suffering its worst violence for years, sparked by incendiary plans to evict dozens of Palestinians from an Arab area in the east of the city and hand their homes to Israelis. The crisis worsened Monday ahead of the nationalist Jerusalem Day Flag March, which marks Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in the 1960s. According to the Associated Press, more than 305 Palestinians were injured in Monday’s violence […]

Back in 2016, right after Britain voted to leave the European Union, the leader of that campaign, future Prime Minister Boris Johnson, spoke glowingly about how Brexit would begin a new phase in the unwavering friendship between his country and its European allies. But, fast forward five years, British and French warships are standing off against each other over a incredibly petty dispute about fish, and U.K. government officials are ridiculing French President Emmanuel Macron of exposing his “small dick energy” over the throwback conflict. The minor standoff has been met with breathless coverage from some of the British press, with […]

Two Colorado cops violently arrested a 73-year-old woman who has dementia—then were caught on camera celebrating and laughing when they reviewed their horrific body-cam footage hours later at the police station. The two officers have been identified as Austin Hopp and Daria Jalali of the Loveland Police Department. They arrested 73-year-old Karen Garner on June 26, 2020, after she left a Walmart with $13 of goods that she hadn’t paid for. Garner’s family says she forgot to pay because of her condition. According to the Denver Post, Hopp found Garner walking home after Walmart staff had reported her. Body-cam footage released […]

Last October, when Britain’s coronavirus case numbers were threatening to spin out of control for a second time, some of Boris Johnson’s most powerful allies in government rounded on the prime minister and told him that another lockdown was urgently needed before things got worse. The top ministers made their case to the extremely reluctant prime minister and talked him round—but, according to a shocking account published Monday, his begrudging acceptance came alongside an unhinged rant about lockdowns that sounds like a King Joffrey line that was edited out of Game of Thrones for being too callous. The Daily Mail reported […]

For weeks, Russia has been inflaming tensions in Eastern Europe by building up a mighty force of some 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border. On Thursday, the Kremlin announced it had achieved what it wanted with the exercise, and ordered its army to pack up and go home. According to BBC News, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the announcement during a visit to Crimea, which was seized and annexed by Russia in the last major conflict in the region seven years ago. Shoigu said the plan of military “snap checks” had been achieved, and there’s nothing left for the tens […]

A day after the European Union’s top diplomat warned that over 100,000 Russian troops have now gathered on Ukraine’s border and in annexed Crimea, new satellite images show the mighty stockpile of military equipment that the Kremlin has deployed to back them up. On Monday, the EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said a massive Russian army has gathered on the Ukraine border, adding: “It’s the highest military deployment of Russian army in Ukrainian borders ever… When you deploy a lot of troops, a spark can jump here or there.” On Tuesday, the satellite images published by the Wall Street Journal […]

Last summer, one week after the killing of George Floyd, the D.C. National Guard horrified human-rights groups by intimidating protesters in the capital by flying helicopters 50 feet above their heads on the city’s streets. On Wednesday, a redacted investigative U.S. Army report into the incident not only condemned the flights as a misuse of medical aircraft—it also showed Guard troops celebrating their overly aggressive tactics, which witnesses said created a deafening noise and sent shards of glass through the air. The investigation, reported by The Washington Post, uncovered texts between Brig. Gen. Robert K. Ryan, who oversaw the controversial mission, […]

Federal health agencies have decided to pause the rollout of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine in the United States after six blood-clot cases were reported in people who have taken the shot. According to The New York Times, the federal government will immediately stop using the vaccine at all federally run vaccination sites across the nation. State health officials will have been advised to follow suit and not use the Johnson & Johnson shots they have in storage. In a Tuesday Twitter thread, the Food and Drug Administration confirmed that it has recommended a freeze in the vaccine’s use. The agency […]

Minutes after the British royal family announced that Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, Prince Philip, had died at the age of 99, the sleuths at Fox & Friends blamed their inevitable culprits: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Host Brian Kilmeade immediately linked the death of the extremely old and sickly Duke of Edinburgh to Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired last month and contained shocking claims of racism and cruel treatment against Meghan by royal family members. Kilmeade said on Friday’s show: “There are reports that [Philip] was enraged after the interview and the fallout from the interview with […]

Dominion Voting Systems has filed a staggering $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, alleging the cable network pushed false claims that the voting-machine company rigged the 2020 election. It’s the latest in a string of massive lawsuits from Dominion, which was the target of a baseless and frankly bizarre Trumpist conspiracy theory that it switched millions of votes in order to help Joe Biden win the White House. Fox News joins Trump allies Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell in being chased for damages for spreading the claim. In its suit against Fox News, Dominion alleges the […]

The unnamed Saudi official who was accused of threatening to kill a United Nations investigator for asking difficult questions has helpfully identified himself—and insists it’s all just a terrible misunderstanding. Earlier this week, Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur who was tasked with investigating Jamal Khashoggi’s slaying at the hands of Saudi government agents, made an incredible allegation. Callamard told The Guardian that, in January 2020, a senior Saudi official threatened to have her “taken care of” if she didn’t go easier on his government. She said that the remark was clearly understood to be a death threat. Although Callamard didn’t […]

The Australian parliament was rocked by yet more sex abuse allegations Monday when footage of a senior government staff member masturbating onto the desk of a female lawmaker was leaked by a whistleblower. The disgusting video—obtained by The Australian newspaper and Channel Ten—led to the immediate firing of the unnamed aide, but it came alongside other images of at least four government staff members who have been swapping images of Parliament House sex acts for years. One of the clips showed a pixellated man exposing his penis with a copy of the Parliament House rule book right behind him, while another […]

In July 2019, two Israeli underworld figures sat down with Vanessa Ballar Fallas at a Mexico City restaurant. At one point during their meeting, Ballar Fallas took a phone call and, moments later, two assailants approached the table and shot both men dead from close range. Ballar Fallas then calmly got up, walked out of the restaurant, and disappeared—until now. According to reports from Mexico, Ballar Fallas was arrested on Thursday for allegedly masterminding the killing of the two men. The pair, Alon Azulay and Benjamin Yeshurun Sutchi, were reportedly in Mexico City to collect a $14.5 million money laundering debt […]

You can’t accuse President Joe Biden of holding back on what he truly thinks of Vladimir Putin. In pretty extraordinarily frank comments to ABC News, Biden described Putin as a “killer” devoid of a human soul. Biden sat down for an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, who asked: “So, you know Vladimir Putin. You think he’s a killer?” Without hesitation, the president replied: “Mmm hmm, I do.” The president described a tense phone call he had with Putin in January in which Biden warned him that he will “pay a price” for his attempts to interfere in U.S. democracy. Biden’s […]

It sounds like there’s a very long way to go until the royal rift between Prince Harry and his family can even begin to heal. According to Harry and Meghan Markle’s friend Gayle King, he’s spoken to brother Prince William and dad Prince Charles since last week’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey, but little progress has been made. King said on Tuesday’s CBS This Morning that she’d been in touch with Harry since the Oprah interview aired and he revealed that he’d phoned home. But, she added: “The word I was given, those conversations were not productive… But they are glad […]

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced Friday that he will not run for re-election—but it sure sounds like he’s trying his hardest to ensure his last months in office come to a dramatic climax as he weighs up whether to charge a case against former President Donald Trump. In a piece for The New Yorker, investigative journalist Jane Mayer reports that Vance’s office has dramatically accelerated the investigation into Trump’s business dealings in recent weeks—particularly since it got its hands on Trump’s tax records at the end of a long legal battle last month. As one person said to be closely […]

Reuters/Saul Loeb Thieves have shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker and made off with two of her French bulldogs, according to a report from TMZ. More to follow… Read more at The Daily Beast. Source link

With their mutual interests in unkempt hair, humping, and creating a terrible mess wherever they go, you’d assume British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his puppy, Dilyn, would be the firmest of friends. However, tensions are high between man and beast in 10 Downing Street. It was reported by the Mail on Sunday this weekend that Johnson lost his patience with Dilyn after a string of incidents. Dilyn stands accused of humping the leg of one of Johnson’s advisers, peeing on another aide’s handbag, and, worst of all, destroying antique furniture at the PM’s country residence, leaving him with a sky-high […]

A Capitol Police officer who was on the front line against the pro-Trump rioters that stormed the Capitol has revealed that he was subjected to relentless racist abuse while trying to defend the building. In an interview broadcast Monday on ABC News’ Good Morning America, Harry Dunn recalled being surrounded by rioters, his lungs burning from pepper spray and bear mace, and bursting into tears. When one of his colleagues approached him to ask what was wrong, Dunn said that he felt devastated by the unashamedly racist vitriol of the the Trumpist rioters. “I got called a [N-word] a couple dozen […]

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have formally split from Britain’s royal family after informing Queen Elizabeth II that they have absolutely no intention of returning from their new lives in the United States. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex sensationally announced last year that they would be bringing an end to their lives as working royals. Following a year-long review of the new arrangement, and after recent discussions between the family members, Harry and Meghan have told the queen that they believe their decision to quit was the right call. Buckingham Palace published a statement on Friday morning, saying that the […]

Speculation raged on social media overnight that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) flew out on vacay to Cancun while his home state of Texas froze—but his office stayed completely silent on the rumors. However, Fox News reports that a Republican source has now confirmed Cruz’s trip. The senator’s fellow travelers seemed to out him on Wednesday evening by posting several snaps of him inside an airport and then, later, on a plane. An unnamed Republican appeared to put an end to the speculation Thursday morning, telling the network that the allegations are true and commenting: “The photos speak for themselves.” Cruz reportedly […]

Atlantic City just got a little bit less Trumpy. On Wednesday morning, the old Trump Plaza building in the heart of the Jersey Shore destination—once the jewel of Trump’s casino empire—got blown to bits. Trump’s casino opened in 1984 but closed in 2014, and has since fallen into such a terrible state that chunks had been breaking off it onto the ground below. Its implosion has been seen as one final good riddance from the city to Trump. “This is the fitting end of Trump’s era,” Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr. said ahead of the demolition, adding that Trump “stiffed […]

Boris Johnson’s historical hero, Winston Churchill, was openly racist and the British Empire relied heavily on slavery and exploitation. But these historical facts make a lot of British voters, who have built their national identity around Britain’s greatness, pretty uncomfortable. The prime minister knows that, and has clearly spotted an opportunity. On Tuesday, Johnson’s government announced its latest naked attempt to force its opponents into a culture war over what they disparagingly dismiss as “woke” opinions and actions. Britain’s education secretary, Gavin Williamson—who you might have assumed would be more busy finding a way to reopen schools and universities—unveiled his new […]

If you were to very publicly ridicule someone for attending a maskless gathering during a pandemic, you would probably have a glance at your diary to see if you were imminently scheduled to make that exact same mistake. However, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) appears to have overlooked that crucial step. On Thursday, McCarthy admitted attending his son’s largely maskless wedding during a coronavirus surge in California on Dec. 5—the same day he jabbed Gov. Gavin Newsom for attending his own maskless party. The top California Republican owned up to attending the gathering after he was asked about it by […]

EDINBURGH—Scottish nationalists have never had better odds of achieving their centuries-long dream of securing independence. The Brexit that Scots voters never wanted is turning out to be just as terrible as had been predicted, the foppish and painfully English prime minister, Boris Johnson, is shambling his way through an eternal fuck-up, and the last 20 opinion polls have shown the pro-independence side in the lead. But, as anyone with even a Braveheart-level of knowledge of its national history knows, Scots have a long-held penchant for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And, right now, Scottish nationalists who have spent their […]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) incredibly raw and emotional Instagram live video is possibly the most vivid and terrifying account yet of last month’s Trumpist insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building. Most reports on the video have focused on the congresswoman speaking out for the first time about her experience of sexual assault, and how she feels that GOP lawmakers are deploying “tactics of abusers” by denying their own responsibility for the Jan. 6 violence and telling her to move on. But the whole video is necessary viewing to understand the sheer panic of lawmakers inside the building who thought they were […]

For years, actress and activist Evan Rachel Wood has spoken out about living as a survivor of sexual violence. Now, she’s decided to name her alleged abuser publicly—Brian Warner, better known as the shock-rock musician and actor Marilyn Manson. In a Monday morning Instagram post, she wrote: “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins […]

A lot of world leaders have taken their COVID-19 vaccines on camera to help show the public that it’s completely safe and painless. But the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, is refusing to take part in that effort—because he wants to take the shot in his butt. According to the Manila Bulletin, the strongman’s spokesperson, Harry Roque, confirmed at a televised press conference that his boss fully intends to be injected in his ass cheek. “He said since he wants to be injected in the buttocks, it cannot be public,” Roque told reporters. Dr. Tony Leachon, a former adviser to […]

One of the Trumpist rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol earlier this month may have stolen House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop and then tried to sell it to Russian intelligence, according to a criminal complaint. The extraordinary claim—which is now under investigation by the FBI—comes from an affidavit describing the criminal case against Pennsylvania woman Riley June Williams. She was recognized in footage of the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot by an unnamed person who claimed to be her former romantic partner. That person then tipped off the FBI. According to the complaint, the footage shows Williams “directing crowds inside the […]

Sheldon Adelson, the multibillionaire casino magnate who was one of Donald Trump’s biggest financial backers in both of his presidential election cycles, has died at the age of 87. Adelson’s death was confirmed Tuesday morning by his wife and his company, Las Vegas Sands. Dr. Miriam Adelson said her husband died of “complications from a long illness,” just five days after it was reported that he was stepping away from his duties as Sands chairman to undergo intensive cancer treatment for his non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The Adelsons set a new record for donations from individuals in a single election cycle last year, […]

Last week, five people died as rioters incited by President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol seeking lawmakers to lynch. But First Lady Melania Trump has identified the worst thing about the entire horrific spectacle—people saying mean things about her online. In a deeply weird and jarring farewell statement posted by the White House early Monday morning, Melania first paid tribute to those who lost their lives in last week’s violence carried out in support of her husband, before going on to settle some scores against unspecified people who she claims have “attacked” her over the past few days since the […]

Associated Press photographers Julio Cortez and John Minchillo were both in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday doing their jobs—documenting the unprecedented storming of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. But, as Cortez’s terrifying GoPro footage shows, the rioters did not want them anywhere near them to record their illegal and destructive actions. Cortez’s video begins as he and Minchillo are apparently taking photos of police officers in riot gear outside the Capitol before their defenses were breached and the storming of the building began. Cortez suddenly swings around to show Minchillo being dragged backward into the Trumpist mob as an angry […]

Joe Scarborough has had enough. The Morning Joe host opened Thursday’s show, the day after pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, with a powerful and furious tirade against the president—and the police officers who didn’t stop the MAGA hordes from breaking in. Scarborough opened his address by asking what would have happened if the rioters weren’t overwhelmingly white and pro-Trump. “If these insurrectionists were Black, they would have been shot in the face,” the MSNBC anchor said. “And, my God, if these insurrectionists were Muslim, they would have been sniped from the top of buildings.” Getting louder and increasingly emotional as […]