There is a robust argument being made, by prominent public figures but also among everyday Americans, that the white evangelical movement has made a Faustian bargain by supporting the GOP, and President Trump, in exchange for promises to eliminate abortion.

Neighbours said the political signs supporting Democrats had been previously pulled down on multiple occasions

The Marine Corps has removed a two-star general from command of Marine forces in Europe and Africa based on an investigation into allegations that he used a racial slur during a training event, officials said Tuesday. The decision to relieve Maj. Gen. Stephen Neary of command of Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa, headquartered in Germany, was made by the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. David Berger. ?Neary was relieved due to a loss of trust and confidence in his ability to serve in command,? the Marines said in a brief written statement.

Guillén's family will receive Army benefits, such as allowances, compensation for expenses, life insurance and a funeral with full military honors.

A shooting in a Texas club left three dead and a fourth critically injured, police said, hours after another incident in which an officer was shot dead.

Another day, another on-board confrontation.

Fake naked images of thousands of women are being made from social media photos.

A French high school teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to his class was beheaded on Oct. 16 by an 18-year-old Muslim refugee in what France?s President Emmanuel Macron characterized as an ?Islamist terrorist attack.?The killing is the latest high-profile attack by a Muslim extremist in France, coming after the 2015 massacre at Charlie Hebdo magazine and the 2016 truck attack in Nice. It also occurred two weeks after Macron gave a controversial speech defining Islam as ?a religion that is in crisis today all over the world.?France, which colonized many Muslim-majority territories in Africa and the Levant in the 19th and 20th centuries, such as Algeria and Mali, has Western Europe?s largest Muslim minority ? 6 million people, or 9% of its population. Macron?s Oct. 2 speech outlined a legislative proposal to fight ?Islamist separatism.? If passed in Parliament, it would essentially ban home-schooling of all children aged 3 and up and prevent foreign-trained imams from leading French mosques. The goal, said the president, is ?to build an Islam in France that can be compatible with the Enlightenment.? Macron?s analysis concludes, simply, that Islam is somehow at odds with modern Western society. But my research on state secularism and religion shows that the reality is much more complicated. French versus American secularismFrench secularism, which is embraced by both the progressive left and the Islamophobic right, goes well beyond the American democratic concept of separating religion and state. Called ?laïcité,? it essentially excludes religious symbols from public institutions. France has banned Muslim women?s headscarves in schools and outlawed religious face coverings everywhere. There are no such bans in the United States.While both America and France have ongoing debates about ?Islamic fundamentalism? and ?Muslim terrorists? and views that can be defined as Islamophobic have some popular support, American democracy generally provides better opportunities for the integration of various religious groups. In France, the Constitution defines the state only as secular, without delineating the boundaries of that secularism. In the United States, the First Amendment restricts the secular state?s engagement with religion, saying the government can neither establish a religion nor prohibit a religion?s free exercise. It would be difficult for the U.S. to announce, as Macron did, a state-sponsored project to ?forge a type of Enlightenment Islam.?Indeed, 11 years before Macron voiced his provocative view, U.S. President Barack Obama gave a famous speech on Islam in Egypt in 2009, attempting to reset the relationship between America and the Muslim world.Emphasizing Muslims? contributions to American society, Obama said, ?It is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit ? for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear.?Obama?s speech reflected an idealized American melting pot, a place where hyphenated identities like Muslim-American are common. French secularism sees no hyphenated identities ? only French or Not French. Islam and the secular stateSome in France also see this rigid secularism as unequal to the challenges of multiculturalism and migration. The eminent scholar Jean Bauberot, for example, defends a more ?pluralistic secularism? ? one that tolerates certain religious symbols in public institutions. France has in fact made many exceptions for Catholics. The government provides substantial public funding to private Catholic schools, which educate about a quarter of all K-12 students, and six of 11 official holidays in France are Catholic holidays. Too often, laïcité translates into an unwillingness to accommodate the religiously based demands of Muslims. In 2015, a Muslim advocacy organization sued a municipal authority in France?s Burgundy region for refusing to offer an alternative to pork in public school cafeterias. The court compelled the town to reverse its policy, but not because it violated religious freedom. The court found the menu violated the children?s rights.France?s founding commitment to equality under the law likewise forestalls meaningful social debate on racial discrimination; its census does not even collect information on race. Although France?s biggest minority is mostly composed of nonwhite Muslim immigrants from its former colonies in Africa and their descendents, Macron?s speech referenced only in passing to French colonialism.[Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation?s newsletter and get expert takes on today?s news, every day.] BlasphemyThat said, I find some truth in Macron?s speech. But the ?crisis? facing Islam lies in the historical and political failings of the Muslim world, not in the religion itself.As my 2019 book, ?Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment,? documents, many Muslim countries like Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia have long-lasting authoritarian regimes and chronic underdevelopment. In 32 of the world?s 49 Muslim-majority countries, blasphemy laws punish people who speak sacrilegiously about sacred things; in six countries, blasphemy is a capital offense. These laws, which block freedom of expression, are more rooted in the interests of the conservative clergy and authoritarian rulers than in the Islamic faith, my research shows. They actually contradict several Quranic verses that urge Muslims not to coerce or retaliate against people of other faiths. Still, in Western countries where Muslims are a minority, extremists occasionally take it upon themselves to punish those who, in their view, mock the Prophet Muhammad. That has caused global controversies over cartoons and movies. At times, in France and beyond, it has led to an unacceptable outcome: murder.Such killings, whether perpetrated by the state or by individuals, are tragedies. But to frame them as a purely religious problem ignores the socioeconomic and political origins of Islamic blasphemy laws, and the anti-democratic cultural consequences of authoritarianism in many Muslim countries. It also overlooks the difficult reality that social alienation is an underlying factor in the radicalization of some young Muslims in the West. Multiple secularisms, multiple IslamsMacron?s speech made some gestures toward greater inclusion. ?I want France to become a country where we can teach the thoughts of Averreos and Ibn Khaldun,? he said, referencing two eminent Muslim thinkers of the 12th and 14th centuries, and envisioned ?a country that excels in the study of Muslim civilizations.? That plural in ?civilizations? is meaningful. It acknowledges that Islam is not monolithic. Neither is French secularism. Both are complex systems with varied interpretations. In truth, Macron doesn?t need to ?build an Islam in France that can be compatible with the Enlightenment,? because that already exists. Whether French secularism can adapt to Islam is another question.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Ahmet T. Kuru, San Diego State University.Read more: * Teachers in France, on the front line of defending the values of the Republic * Execution for a Facebook post? Why blasphemy is a capital offense in some Muslim countriesAhmet T. Kuru does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

"Our account was hacked. We apologize to our followers," the US Army's Ft. Bragg said on Twitter before the account was deactivated.

A United States Marine Corps helicopter crew chief has accused Australian special forces of shooting dead one of seven bound Afghan prisoners because there was only space for six on the US aircraft due to collect them. The chief, ?Josh?, flew 159 combat missions for the Marine Corps? Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469. He told Australia's ABC Investigations he was a door gunner providing aerial covering fire for the Australian soldiers of the 2nd Commando Regiment during a night raid in mid-2012, north of his squadron?s base in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. The raid was part of a broader joint Australian special forces-US Drug Enforcement Administration campaign targetting drug operations financing the Taliban. Josh told the ABC: ?We just watched them tackle and hogtie these guys and we knew their hands were tied behind their backs?. He said the Australian commandos then called for the US aircraft to pick them and seven prisoners up. ?The pilot said, 'That's too many people, we can't carry that many passengers.' And you just heard this silence and then we heard a pop. And then they said, 'OK, we have six prisoners'.? The USMC chief said it was ?apparent to everybody involved in that mission that they had just killed a prisoner that we had just watched them catch and hogtie?.

Commander-in-chief complained about the cold before wrapping up proceedings early

As voters consider recreational legalization, the outcomes of legal marijuana in Colorado, Washington and California help show what would happen.

Cameron is the Kentucky attorney general who dragged his feet seeking charges against the police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor, a Black woman, in her home and in her sleep. When the grand jury indicted only one of the four officers ? not for murdering Breonna, but for endangering the lives of the white folks next door ? we knew something wasn?t smelling right.

One set of human remains, and perhaps a second, have been found in a Tulsa cemetery where investigators are searching for victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Oklahoma state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said Tuesday. ?We do have one confirmed individual and the possibility of a second? body found, Stackelbeck said. The confirmed human remains were found little more than 3 feet (90 centimeters) underground in an area known as the ?Original 18,? where funeral home records show massacre victims are buried.

After Hurricane Epsilon saw rapid intensification into a Category 3 storm, Bermuda was forecast to see its effects early Thursday before the hurricane comes close to the island that night.

The sky show begins in the wee hours and continues through dawn.

The US should have enough doses for seniors, healthcare workers, and first responders by the end of January, Azar said.

An ugly fight over social media about racism at USC had one positive outcome: the university president's strong statement condemning anti-Semitism.

Former President Barack Obama on Wednesday said dealing with the coronavirus pandemic "would have been challenging for any president, but this idea that somehow this White House has done anything but completely screw this up is just not true."Obama made his remarks in Philadelphia during a drive-up rally for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Obama said that South Korea recorded its first COVID-19 case at the same time as the United States, "and its per capita death toll is just 1.3 percent of what ours is. Canada is just 39 percent of what ours is. Other countries are struggling with the pandemic, but they're not doing as bad as we are because they've got a government that's actually been paying attention."Comparing Biden to President Trump, Obama declared that "Joe's not going to screw up testing, he's not going to call scientists idiots, he's not going to host a superspreader event at the White House." The United States is eight months into the pandemic, and cases are again on the rise across the country, but "Donald Trump isn't suddenly going to protect all of us," Obama said. "He can't even take the basic steps to protect himself."Trump can't say Obama didn't try to warn him ? before leaving office, his administration passed along a 70-page document on how to fight pandemics, the former president stated, with information included on novel coronaviruses. "We literally left this White House a pandemic playbook," Obama said. "They probably used it to prop up a wobbly table somewhere."Obama didn't just focus on the pandemic. He also made the pitch for Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), promising voters they "are going to fight for you every day. They care about you and they care about this democracy. ... They believe that no one, especially the president, is above the law. They understand that protests on behalf of social justice isn't un-American, that's the most American thing there is. That's how this country was founded: protesting injustice."More stories from theweek.com The left embraces rigging democracy The greatest risk for a Biden administration A new constitution? Be careful what you wish for.

Today is International Pronouns Day, a day to honor the importance and necessity of using trans and non-binary people's correct gender pronouns.

Mexico's former defense minister, Salvador Cienfuegos, was ordered held in U.S. custody without bail on Tuesday, pending his trial on drug trafficking charges in a case that could have far-reaching implications for U.S. and Mexican anti-cartel strategy. A U.S. magistrate judge also ordered Cienfuegos, 72, sent to New York to stand trial. Cienfuegos was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport last week.

Cheer Athletics co-owner Angela Rogers warned 'Cheer' star Jerry Harris about a possible investigation into his conduct, according to a lawsuit.

President Trump?s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court has ignited an expected, yet unfortunate, conflagration on the left. With few procedural levers to pull and little chance of blocking Barrett?s confirmation, the left wing of the Democratic Party has threatened to ?pack the court,? if given the chance, by increasing the number of justices.

The stranded oil ship threatens to dump up to 80 million gallons of oil into the sea.

Big Tech platforms are rushing to update policies and try and stem a flood of hate speech.

Senator Lindsey Graham and his Democratic opponent this autumn, Jaime Harrison, are in a statistical deadlock, recent polling in the Palmetto State has found. A new poll conducted by liberal writer and strategist Cornell Belcher and his consulting outfit Research and Strategies found Mr Harrison, the challenger, with a 2 percentage point lead over Mr Graham as the race enters its final two weeks. Mr Harrison led Mr Graham 47-45 per cent in that poll, with 5 per cent of respondents undecided.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. ? Florida, which has reported the deaths of more than 16,400 people from COVID-19, now says the public may not be able to trust any of those numbers. The state Department of Health on Wednesday ordered an investigation of all pandemic fatalities, one week after House Speaker Jose Oliva slammed the death data from medical examiners as "often lacking in rigor" and ...

This year's election is looking familiar.Polls have long given Democratic nominee Joe Biden a big advantage in this year's presidential race. And with more forecasting Democratic gains in the Senate as well, pollsters and analysts have started to compare 2020 to 1980. That's when former President Ronald Reagan swept the U.S. in a landslide, and Republicans ousted 12 Democrats in the Senate.One of those pollsters estimating a blue wave is Charlie Cook, who runs The Cook Political Report. Cook noted in a Wednesday tweet that a big presidential win doesn't necessarily mean a complete wave ? it didn't in 1972 and 1984. But he thinks this year's likely big win for Biden will be different, recalling how the losses trickled in for Democrats in 1980 and saying this year's Senate losses for Republicans "won't hit 12 but could get to be a pretty big number." > Those around in 1980 might recall that Birch Bath, the first Democratic Senate incumbent to lose, was about 6:30 pm ET, another dropped roughly every half hour for six hours, totaling 12. This won?t hit 12 but could get to be a pretty big number.> > ? Charlie Cook (@CharlieCookDC) October 21, 2020The idea's most ardent defender is Joe Trippi, who has been working on Democratic campaigns since 1980. He has repeated over and over that this year's election looks much more like 1980 than 2016, crediting the fatigue voters already feel after just four years of Trump. > McConnell tells GOP Senators to distance from Trump "if necessary" Maybe he remembers 1980 too! Give episode 2 a listen here: https://t.co/J8maqHRBkv pic.twitter.com/tBQ8IMAzxk> > ? Joe Trippi (@JoeTrippi) August 1, 2020Cook's insistence that just one Democratic-held Senate seat is in play this year versus nine Republican seats has only added to Trippi's evidence.More stories from theweek.com The left embraces rigging democracy The greatest risk for a Biden administration A new constitution? Be careful what you wish for.

A new report from Columbia University on COVID-19 deaths estimates that hundreds of thousands of Americans died because the United States? response to the pandemic was an ?abject failure,? particularly the actions of President Donald Trump. With an adequate response, the United States could have avoided tens of thousands of deaths and an incalculable amount of suffering, the researchers said.Dr. Irwin Redlener, the lead author on the study and the founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, laid the blame at the feet of the White House in an interview with The Daily Beast: ?We believe that this was a monumental, lethal screwup by an administration that didn?t want to deal with reality.?In the report, titled ?130,000?210,000 Avoidable COVID-19 Deaths?and Counting?in the U.S.?, researchers at Columbia?s NCDP studied ?the staggering and disproportionate nature of COVID-19 fatalities in the United States.?The researchers compared the coronavirus response of the U.S. to that of six other countries? South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, Canada, and France?and found that the American government?s response to the pandemic rated unfavorably against them all. The U.S. has suffered a COVID-19 fatality rate more than double that of Canada and 50 times that of Japan. Extrapolating from the deaths per 100,000 people in each country, the researchers estimated how the U.S. might have fared had it followed the example of a more robust response. The answer: always better than it did in reality.?If the U.S. had followed Canadian policies and protocols, there might have only been 85,192 U.S. deaths?making more than 132,500 American deaths ?avoidable.? If the U.S. response had mirrored that of Germany, the U.S. may have only had 38,457 deaths?leaving 179,260 avoidable deaths,? the researchers wrote.The researchers chose the half dozen countries that have achieved some level of success in responding to the pandemic.?We should model ourselves on the best. We should be the best,? Redlener said. ?We have the resources, the economy, the scientific expertise to do this the right way. We?re facing a lethal pandemic, and we had very misguided leadership that chose to berate the purveyors of masks and social distancing. The president himself became a superspreader. He has blood on his hands.?Researchers cite several well-known but catastrophic factors that plagued the U.S. response: insufficient testing, delayed lockdowns, a lack of a unified federal response, and a failure to mandate non-medical interventions like masks and social distancing. American leaders, the researchers wrote, have shown a ?failure to model best practices,? especially wearing masks during public appearances. Though research publications rarely venture into politics, both Scientific American and the New England Journal of Medicine have published editorials excoriating the Trump administration for its handling of the pandemic in the past month.?There continues to be confusion, mismanagement, and dishonesty, and we?re reaping the consequences of misconduct in office. Usually academic publications are not so overtly political, but this incredibly anti-science administration has caused an enormous tragedy in America. The fact that these deaths could have been avoided is a stunning realization,? Redlener said.More than 220,000 people in the United States have died of the coronavirus this year, and over 8.3 million have tested positive, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Public health experts estimate that millions more have contracted the virus but not received an official diagnosis because of a lack of adequate testing. The actual death toll from the virus also may be much higher than recorded.Public health officials across the country are warning that the upcoming winter may be an especially brutal period as coronavirus infections rise to a third peak and flu season arrives. Adding to that gloomy forecast, the Columbia researchers wrote that the federal government?s ?continued mismanagement? of the pandemic shows few indications of improvement: ?The abject failures of U.S. government policies and crisis messaging persist.?The end, according to Redlener, is nowhere in sight.?Americans have a bad case of pandemic fatigue. We want to get back to some semblance of normalcy, but we never did what we had to do to achieve that state,? he said. ?We?ve delayed the return of normalcy and fallen into this web of dishonesty and opposing science that was concocted by the president.?Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Lawyers for the Ohio hospital doctor charged with murder in 25 patient deaths accused the prosecutor of misconduct and asked Tuesday that the court dismiss the indictment handed up by a grand jury. Former intensive care doctor William Husel is accused of ordering excessive painkillers for patients who died shortly thereafter in the Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System. Prosecutors charged him only in cases involving at least 500 micrograms of fentanyl, saying doses that big in nonsurgical situations pointed to an intent to prematurely snuff out lives.

Tax records have revealed that President Trump spent a decade unsuccessfully trying to land projects in China, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Authorities revoked an emergency decree which had failed to curb months of anti-government rallies.

Some aren?t happy about what happened to the catfish

"You've got to be able to ship nuclear assets safely and securely or you don't have a deterrence program," a lab project manager said.

In the viral video, an employee confronts Scott, who said his medical condition prevents him from wearing a mask.

Brazilian health authority Anvisa said on Wednesday that a volunteer in a clinical trial of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University had died but added that the trial would continue.

Despite a Senate GOP investigation that found no wrongdoing by Joe Biden on foreign policy in Ukraine, claims to the contrary continue to circulate.

Amy Coney Barrett will likely make it to the Supreme Court as the Republicans have the simple majority and the Judiciary Committee majority for Monday?s confirmation vote. According to the Huffington Post, Democrats at issue with Coney Barrett?s stance on the Affordable Care Act will protest by boycotting the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Thursday.

The death of Reina Mae Nasino's 3-month-old daughter, River, has sparked an uproar over President Rodrigo Duterte's crackdown on human rights defenders. The underweight infant was separated from her mother, denying her breast milk that could have prolonged her life.

Within MacClenny, it was hard to find a bad word for the president?s handing of the pandemic

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron had always found the Left to be intolerant of black conservatives, but the spate of character assassination attempts he has faced recently have gone ?beyond the pale.?In a recent interview with National Review, Cameron, the first African-American to ever be independently elected to statewide office in the Bluegrass State, detailed the experience of  being on the receiving end of a firestorm of criticism over his investigation into the police shooting of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor. Much of the backlash has centered on his own identity as a black man.Perhaps most notable was rapper Megan Thee Stallion?s Saturday Night Live performance earlier this month in which she played a clip of activist Tamika Mallory calling Cameron ?no different than the sellout Negroes that sold our people into slavery.?The 34-year-old attorney general, in just under a year of being in office, has found himself at the center of one of the nation?s most contentious cases of a fatal encounter between police and black Americans.Louisville police fatally shot Taylor during a botched drug raid in March. Officers were executing a search warrant shortly before 1 a.m. on March 13 when they used a battering ram to enter Taylor?s home. The officers claim they knocked and announced themselves to no response, but Taylor's boyfriend Kenneth Walker says he did not hear police identify themselves. Walked fired a shot when the door opened. He said he believed someone was breaking in.Walker?s shot hit Sargeant Jonathan Mattingly in the thigh, police said, leading Mattingly and Detectives Myles Cosgrove and Brett Hankison to fire 32 rounds in response, striking Taylor six times in her hallway, where she stood next to Walker. Outrage, which had been brewing in the months since the fatal incident, boiled over last month when the grand jury decided, on the recommendation of the attorney general?s office, to indict Hankison for wanton endangerment for firing into the empty apartment next to Taylor?s. None of the officers involved were charged in Taylor?s death. Cameron?s office made the recommendation after spending thousands of hours examining evidence in the case from mid May up until just days before the grand-jury presentation began last month.In public remarks about the investigation following the grand-jury decision September 23, Cameron called Taylor?s death a tragedy, but said his job was to investigate the facts of the case. After combing through ballistics evidence, 911 calls, police-radio traffic, and interviews, Cameron found that there was no wrongdoing on the part of Cosgrove and Mattingly, who were justified in returning fire.?The decision before my office as a special prosecutor in this case, was not to decide the loss of Miss Taylor's life was a tragedy. The answer to that question is unequivocally yes,? he said.?I deeply care about the value and sanctity of human life deserves protection. And in this case, a human life was lost. We cannot forget that,? he said. ?My job as the special prosecutor in this case was to put emotions aside and investigate the facts to determine if criminal violations of state law resulted in the loss of Miss Taylor's life.?The facts, he said, are that Cosgrove and Mattingly returned fire after being fired upon and were justified in doing so."Sometimes the criminal law is inadequate to respond to or address a tragedy,? he told National Review.?Frankly that, in my judgment, is the case here. But that doesn?t exclude my responsibility to make sure that we stand up for truth and justice in this office, and make sure that the facts lead us to conclusions," he said.Cameron said he recognizes that in his role, and with all public service positions, most decisions will be met with criticism, but some of that criticism has been ?beyond the pale,? he said. MSNBC host Joy Reid said on her show last month after the grand-jury decision that Cameron's identity as a black man came second to his party affiliation and criticized him for having done "nothing but give a speech.""You have to always look at [political] party," she said. "Party is the religion now in America, especially for Republicans. Don?t look at the fact that this guy is black. That does not mean anything. He is a Republican, through and through."On Reid's show, Alicia Garza, an original founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, was similarly critical, comparing Cameron to the segregation-era politician Bull Connor who fought against civil rights for blacks."I think what I saw this morning was a Bull Connor speech in 2020. And . . . unfortunately, it was being given by a black prosecutor," Garza said.Cameron said he hopes the harsh backlash he has received will shine a light on the hypocrisy of the Left.?What I hope people are seeing in this process is that a lot of those folks who preach tolerance are really being exposed for their intolerant views,? he said. ?There are really a lot of intolerant people here to black folks who might have different philosophical views or don't subscribe to a liberal orthodoxy.?Cameron is a lifelong conservative, having been raised by two conservative parents in the former frontier town of Elizabethtown, Ky. Growing up, he worked in the coffee shop that his dad owned, and his mother taught at a community college. ?My parents are conservatives. Owning a small business lent itself to that viewpoint. Our connection to faith and church and that background sort of lent itself in our views to the Republican Party and our views on smaller government,? he said. ?It wasn?t until I got to undergrad that I realized that not everybody held those views.?Cameron studied at the University of Louisville, where he played football and later earned his law degree, in 2011. He was the recipient of one of ten McConnell scholarships, a competitive academic prize at the university, beginning an influential mentor-mentee relationship with Senator Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.).Cameron went on to intern in McConnell's Senate office and then clerked for a federal judge who had also previously worked for the Senate majority leader. McConnell hired Cameron as general counsel in 2015. In that role, Cameron helped McConnell identify and promote conservative judges to the federal bench and helped to shepherd through the nomination of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. It was McConnell who encouraged Cameron to run for attorney general.Cameron thanked his mentor shortly after winning the AG race against Democratic competitor Greg Stumbo, becoming the first Republican elected to the office since 1944.He said the senator ?changed the trajectory of my life? by recommending that he run for the role. ?I?m proud to call him a friend, I?m proud to call him a mentor,? Cameron said.Speaking to The Hill  last year, McConnell said there are ?a lot of similarities? between him and his protégé.?Neither of us when we started out were well connected and had to start from scratch. But he?s earned this opportunity and he deserves the credit,? McConnell said. ?All you could credit me with was observing the real talent.?McConnell has supported Cameron?s work in the Taylor case, saying last month that he had ?conducted exactly the kind of thorough, impartial investigation that justice demands.? ?I have full confidence in the attorney general?s painstaking pursuit of facts and justice,? he said.But not everyone has been so kind.The Megan Thee Stallion stunt, which Cameron called ?pretty disgusting,? was just one in a series of racial attacks on the attorney general. ?There are folks that had already made a determination about how they want to see this case play out and when that didn?t happen, they?ve responded in a way that is not very civil in my judgment,? he said, saying the SNL incident was ?just another demonstration of that.??It?s not uncommon for folks to make wild accusations about black conservatives,? he said. ?This isn?t the first time it happened to me, and it certainly won?t be the last.?Last year during the AG race, it was clear that race would play a role of outsized importance when the Lexington-Herald Leader published a cartoon depicting Cameron latching onto the coattails of a Ku Klux Klan robe worn by President Trump. > This is what the @HeraldLeader ?a ?tolerant,? left-leaning newspaper?thinks about black folks who dare to be Republican. You?re a racist following the KKK unless you hate @realDonaldTrump. Let?s make history on November 5th and show we don?t take orders from the elites anymore. pic.twitter.com/gjnCT4eOsg> > -- Daniel Cameron (@DanielCameronAG) October 27, 2019Cameron blasted the cartoon then as evidence of liberal intolerance of ?the idea of folks that look like me who happen to be Republican.?He told National Review that ?there?s a long list of black conservatives who have been disparaged just because of the political philosophy that we have.??I hope it exposes the intolerance of the Left and how they don't respond in civil public conversation or discourse. The way they respond is to hurl insults at black conservatives, and it's disappointing,? he said.?I wake up every day and my skin is black and I?m fully aware of that," he added. "But my responsibility as the attorney general is to be the attorney general of all of Kentucky. I ran on the idea that this office needs to be about the rule of law, and our responsibility to enforce the rule of law, regardless of the outcomes or the consequences to me whether personally or politically that is my responsibility.?In a speech at the Republican National Convention in August, Cameron called out Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for his disparaging remarks about the black community, including black Republicans."I think often about my ancestors who struggled for freedom," he said. "And as I think of those giants and their broad shoulders, I also think about Joe Biden, who says, if you aren't voting for me, 'you ain't black.' Who argued that Republicans would put us 'back in chains.' Who says there is no 'diversity' of thought in the black community?""Mr. Vice President, look at me, I am black. We are not all the same, sir. I am not in chains. My mind is my own. And you can't tell me how to vote because of the color of my skin," he added. Cameron recognizes that, as someone who holds public office, he is opening himself up to criticism and said he supports civil discourse and peaceful protests. In July, more than 100 people gathered on Cameron's front lawn to demand the officers involved in Taylor's death be charged. Police arrested 87 protesters including Leslie Redmond, the president of the NAACP?s Minneapolis chapter; Houston Texans wide receiver Kenny Stills; and Porsha Williams, a member of the cast of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.Jefferson County attorney Mike O?Connell ultimately dropped the felony charges against the protesters.?Peaceful protest has been a part of our history,? Cameron told National Review. ?But when we see these violent elements try to hijack peaceful protests and we?ve seen some of the looting and vandalism and burning of American cities, I mean that is disheartening.?He believes it will take an effort from leaders on both sides to denounce that sort of conduct and ?let people know that that?s outside the bounds of what is normal and appropriate.??I am always optimistic about the future of this country and always know that cooler heads will prevail,? he said.

Fair Havens nursing home in Miami Springs, where 52 died of COVID-19, was issued a $67,000 fine by the state of Florida but also allowed to resume taking in new residents.

USS Zumwalt went years without a working combat system, but now the Navy is starting to put its weapons to the test.

An unofficial vaccine rollout is gathering pace despite the warnings of international public health experts

The U.S. government is "cautiously optimistic" that one or two vaccines, likely from Pfizer Inc or Moderna Inc, will be available by the end of the year and can begin to be distributed to Americans, officials said during a news conference. Azar said he expects all seniors, healthcare workers, and first responders will be able to receive a vaccine as soon as January, with the rest of the American public able to get a vaccine by April.

House Republicans said they will push an inquiry into Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's use of an Amtrak charter train to campaign.

Months after vowing to process a backlog of 160,000 requests for loan forgiveness from students who say they were defrauded by their schools, the U.S. Education Department has rejected 94% of claims it has reviewed, according to a federal judge who is demanding justification for the ?blistering pace? of denials. In a biting decision issued Monday in California, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said the department has been denying claims using template letters that are ?alarmingly curt." Alsup threatened to suspend the agency from rejecting further requests, saying its approach ?hangs borrowers out to dry.?