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Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has been left "shaken" by the unexpected public reaction to his ruling in the Donald Trumppresidential immunity case, a columnist wrote Friday.

Slate's judicial writer Dahlia Lithwick wrote that Roberts was left shocked that Americans didn't buy his attempt to persuade them that his ruling was not about Trump, but instead focused on the office of the presidency. The court ruled that a president was largely immune from criminal prosecution for official actions.

Lithwick referenced a report by CNN's Joan Biskupic. He “was shaken by the adverse public reaction to his decision affording [Donald] Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution," she wrote.

"His protestations that the case concerned the presidency, not Trump, held little currency.”

PHOENIX, AZ — A Black man, who is deaf and has cerebral palsy is facing felony aggravated assault and resisting arrest charges after he was repeatedly punched and tasered by a pair of Phoenix police officers.

The violent and rapid arrest of Tyron McAlpin raises serious questions and could serve as a test case for Phoenix and the Department of Justice as the two battle over whether the police department in America’s fifth-largest city needs federal oversight.

Acting on false claims from a white man under investigation, body camera video shows officers unexpectedly go after McAlpin, punch him in the head at least 10 times, Taser him four times, and wrap their arms around his neck.

CD Projekt joint CEO Michał Nowakowski has issued a strongly worded response to accusations that the studio "is in a lot of trouble right now" because of "diversity hires," saying the people peddling such nonsense need to "stop looking for conspiracy theories."

"Seems we live in times where anyone can record complete nonsense and make a story out of it," Nowakowski said in response to a post on X by YouTuber Endymion, who has a long history of stridently complaining about diversity and "wokeness" in videogames.

"CDPR talent leaving? We have the lowest rotation of people in recent years. DEI-driven recruitment? We hire based on merit and talent alone, just as we make games driven by artistic vision alone. Why did we choose [Unreal Engine]? Because it enables us to work on our games more efficiently and we remain cutting edge tech-wise. The Witcher 3’s director left? Well, yeah, more than 2 years ago… Now, can we stop looking for conspiracy theories and go back to making cool stuff?"

As a hedge fund manager, Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick's company held roughly $415 million in Russian sovereign bonds prior to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

According to a Thursday report in the Guardian, McCormick — who is running against three-term incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) — was found to have held the Russian debt through his firm, Bridgewater Associates, between 2017 and 2021. Sovereign debt is a major source of funding for countries to pay for operations and service debt, and has become increasingly subjected to sanctions since 2019.

McCormick has previously taken full ownership of Bridgewater's decisions during his tenure as CEO — a position he held until 2022, when he unsuccessfully ran in Pennsylvania's Republican Senate primary (he went on to lose to Mehmet Oz). In a 2023 speech to the American Enterprise Institute, McCormick told the audience: "Whatever we did I'm responsible for."

As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida, meteorologists are staying awake for days at a time trying to get vital, life-saving information out to the folks who will be affected. That’s their job. But this year, several of them tell Rolling Stone, they’re increasingly having to take time out to quell the nonstop flow of misinformation during a particularly traumatic hurricane season. And some of them are doing it while being personally threatened.

“People are just so far gone, it’s honestly making me lose all faith in humanity,” says Washington D.C.-based meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, in a phone interview conducted while he was traveling down to Florida for the storm. “There’s so much bad information floating around out there that the good information has become obscured.”

Cappucci says that he’s noticed an enormous change on social media in the last three months: “Seemingly overnight, ideas that once would have been ridiculed as very fringe, outlandish viewpoints are suddenly becoming mainstream and it’s making my job much more difficult.”

As Elon Musk likes to do whenever disaster hits somewhere in the world, Hurricane Helene was another opportunity to show off his generosity and make himself part of the news. This time, Musk made headlines with a promise that SpaceX Starlink would be free for 30 days to help in places where fiber and cellular infrastructure might have been knocked offline. More than 200 people have been identified as dead in the disaster.

But the catch is that it’s really not free at all. It really looks like not much more than a glorified new-customer promotion.

For one, anyone interested in taking up the offer still has to pay approximately $400 for the dish itself (including shipping and tax) and they’re getting automatically rolled into a $120 per-month contract when the free month ends.

ATLANTA — The Rockdale County soil and water supervisor died on Tuesday after collapsing while around the Georgia State Capitol for a public meeting about the BioLab chemical plume. 

Earlier in the day, Kenny Johnson, 62, spoke during the meeting at Coverdell Legislative Office Building, across from the Georgia Capitol. He later collapsed and was sent to the hospital.

According to the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office, Johnson died at Grady Memorial Hospital. The ME said that due to the circumstances of the incident, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has agreed to accept the case.

A cause of death is still pending, as an autopsy needs to be completed.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is putting the full weight of the Florida government behind an effort to defeat a ballot measure that would protect abortion access in the state — including by enlisting government lawyers in a campaign to silence a young mother with terminal brain cancer who is warning of the danger Florida’s strict ban poses to women like her.

This November, Florida residents will have the opportunity to vote on Amendment 4; if passed, the measure will enshrine the right to abortion “before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health” in Florida’s constitution. The pitch is broadly popular with Floridians: A September poll showed the measure attracting support from 76 percent of voters. 

But DeSantis, who has signed two separate abortion bans into law — restricting the procedure first at 15 weeks, then 6 weeks gestation — is desperately trying to tank Amendment 4. First, he worked with the Heritage Foundation to add language to the ballot measure implying that relegalizing abortion would have a negative fiscal impact on the state.

Amid that baseless warning, state agencies began spending public money on TV and radio ads peddling misinformation about the measure, as well as a website that claims Amendment 4 “threatens women’s safety.” 

Now, DeSantis is trying to keep a cancer patient named Caroline from sharing the story of her abortion, by threatening to criminally prosecute TV stations that carry the Amendment 4 ad featuring her story.

McDonald’s has some beef with today’s largest meat packers.

The fast food giant is suing the U.S. meat industry’s “Big Four” — Tyson, JBS, Cargill and National Beef Packing Company — and their subsidiaries, alleging a price fixing scheme for beef specifically. In a federal complaint, filed Friday in New York, McDonald’s accused the companies of anticompetitive measures such as collectively limiting supply to boost prices and charge “illegally inflated” amounts.

This collusion caused the beef market to become “a monopoly in which direct purchasers were forced to buy at prices dictated by (the meat packers),” McDonald’s suit reads — later noting that the injury it has sustained as one of those buyers is what “antitrust laws were designed to prevent.”

McDonald’s alleges that the meat packers’ conspiracy dates back nearly a decade, at least as early as January 2015, and continues today. Its suit argues these companies’ actions violate the Sherman Act, a federal antitrust law.

TikTok users are asking Amazon’s Alexa unanswerable questions about the outcome of rapidly strengthening Hurricane Milton, which is forecast to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Alexa is providing users with inaccurate answers, sparking panic and conspiracy theories that have already garnered over a million views on TikTok.

Users are asking variations of the same question: “Alexa, what kind of hurricane was Hurricane Milton?”

“From fandom.com: Hurricane Milton was an extremely powerful Category 5 hurricane that caused widespread damage across its path in October 2024,” respondedAlexa in multiple videos. (Although Media Matters couldn’t replicate the response, Alexa did tell us the death toll and monetary damages of a hurricane that has not yet made landfall when we asked if there were any fatalities from Hurricane Milton). 

Alexa’s response cites fandom.com, a fan-generatedentertainment and gaming platform. Within fandom is the Hypothetical Hurricanes Wiki, a “wiki-based comprehensive database of hypothetical tropical cyclone articles that anyone can edit.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday let stand a decision barring emergency abortions that violate the law in Texas, which has one of the country’s strictest abortion bans. 

Without detailing their reasoning, the justices kept in place a lower court order that said hospitals cannot be required to provide pregnancy terminations that would violate Texas law. 

The Biden administration had asked the justices to throw out the lower court order, arguing that hospitals have to perform abortions in emergency situations under federal law. The administration pointed to the Supreme Court’s action in a similar case from Idaho earlier this year in which the justices narrowly allowed emergency abortions to resume while a lawsuit continues. 

The administration also cited a Texas Supreme Court ruling that said doctors do not have to wait until a woman’s life is in immediate danger to provide an abortion legally. The administration said it brings Texas in line with federal law and means the lower court ruling is not necessary.

X owner Elon Musk has once again hijacked a rare coveted username from its original user.

This time, however, the takeover wasn’t for the good of X the company, it was so Musk could promote Donald Trump for president.

On Saturday, Musk appeared at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler Pennsylvania. However, earlier that day, Musk began promoting his pro-Trump Super PAC, called America PAC, using a brand new handle @America.

“Read @America to understand why I’m supporting Trump for President,” Musk’s new bio said as of approximately 1:30pm ET on Saturday, Oct. 5.

The @America handle appeared attached to a brand new account setup just this month, in October 2024. However, this rare, one-word geographic handle had already been long registered by another X user more than 14 years prior to Musk taking the handle from them, in September 2010.

According to a person familiar with the situation, X took the handle from the user much like how Musk’s social media company took the @X handle from its original registrant last year.