The Capitol Police officer who fatally shot Ashli Babbitt during the Jan. 6 riots and then was promoted has a lengthy internal affairs and disciplinary record that includes firearm-related incidents, a sweeping congressional investigation has found.
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Bernard “Bernie” Marcus, who helped build The Home Depot into one of America’s most iconic brands before turning to philanthropy and conservative politics and unabashedly backing Donald Trump’s rise in politics, died Monday night at the age of 95.
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Nearly a quarter of Americans say that they know someone who died from COVID-19 injection side effects, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released on Thursday.
More men (51 percent) than women (44 percent) said someone they know personally died from side effects of the COVID shots.
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Matthew Perry, whose portrayal of the character Chandler Bing on “Friends” catapulted him to TV fame even as he struggled privately with addiction, died Saturday at age 54 in an apparent drowning at his Los Angeles home, according to multiple news reports.
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Almost immediately, three media narratives emerged.
One, semiautomatic weapons, not the killer Audrey Hale, were mostly responsible for the massacre.
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California doctors who object to assisted suicide are fighting an amended state law that implicates them in their patients’ intentional deaths.
They are suing California officials, including Attorney General Rob Bonta, Department of Public Health Director Tomas Aragon, and Medical Board members to block SB 380, which made it easier for patients to commit suicide under the End of Life Options Act that took effect in 2016.
The original law issued a broad exemption for healthcare providers, granting them a liability shield for “refusing to inform” patients about their right to physician-assisted suicide and “not referring” patients to physicians who will assist in their suicides.
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David Sassoli, president of the European Union’s parliament, died in a hospital on Tuesday at the age of 65 after months of poor health, the Associated Press reported.
Sassoli, a socialist and former Italian journalist, had been hospitalized since late December 2021 due to abnormal immune system functioning, his spokesperson said, the AP reported. He had been struggling with poor health since he became ill with pneumonia due to the legionella bacteria in September.
European Council President Charles Michel said Sassoli was a “sincere and passionate European. We already miss his human warmth, his generosity, his friendliness and his smile,” the AP reported.
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When U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd went on “NBC Nightly News” to tell his side of shooting and killing unarmed Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt, he made a point to note he’d been investigated by several agencies and exonerated for his actions that day.
“There’s an investigative process [and] I was cleared by the DOJ [Department of Justice], and FBI and [the D.C.] Metropolitan Police,” he told NBC News anchor Lester Holt in August, adding that the Capitol Police also cleared him of wrongdoing and decided not to discipline or demote him for the shooting.
Byrd then answered a series of questions by Holt about the shooting, but what he told the friendly journalist, he likely never told investigators. That’s because he refused to answer their questions, according to several sources and documents reviewed by RealClearInvestigations.
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Comedian Bob Saget passed away Sunday at the age of 65 in an Orlando, Florida hotel room, TMZ reports.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office reports that detectives on the scene “found no signs of foul play or drug use in this case.”
Ritz-Carlton Hotel security reportedly found Saget in his room and called emergency personel. Saget was pronounced dead on the scene, and his death is still under investigation.
Saget is remembered for starring as host of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and as father Danny Tanner in “Full House.”
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Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid died Tuesday at his home at the age of 82.
The Democratic lawmaker from Nevada served as majority leader from 2007 to 2015.
His death was confirmed by The Nevada Independent CEO Jon Ralston.
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Pro-Football Hall of Fame coach John Madden died unexpectedly Tuesday morning at the age of 85, the NFL reported.
“We all know him as the Hall of Fame coach of the Oakland Raiders and broadcaster who worked for every major network, but more than anything, he was a devoted husband, father and grandfather,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, adding that he sends his condolences to Madden’s family.
“Nobody loved football more than Coach. He was football. He was an incredible sounding board to me and so many others. There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today,” Goodell concluded.
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Most police departments — including Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police — are required to release an officer’s name within days of a fatal shooting. Not the U.S. Capitol Police, which is controlled by Congress and answers only to Congress. It can keep the public in the dark about the identity and investigation of an officer involved in a shooting indefinitely.
Which is what happened with the Jan. 6 shooting of Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed protester in the U.S. Capitol riot who was fatally wounded by a plainclothes police lieutenant as she attempted to breach a set of doors inside the building.
For the past six months, as Congress has proposed legislation to reform police departments across the country, the Capitol Police has stiff-armed government watchdogs, journalists and even lawyers for Babbitt, who have sought the identity of the officer and additional details about the shooting. The USCP still refuses to release his name, in stark contrast to recent high-profile police shootings around the nation.
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Father’s Day inspires mixed emotions for many of us. Looking at advertisements of happy families could recall difficult memories and broken relationships for some. But for others, the day could invite unbidden nostalgic thoughts of parents who have long since died.
As a scholar of ancient Greek poetry, I find myself reflecting on two of the most powerful paternal moments in Greek literature. At the end of Homer’s classic poem, “The Iliad,” Priam, the king of Troy, begs his son’s killer, Achilles, to return the body of Hektor, the city’s greatest warrior, for burial. Once Achilles puts aside his famous rage and agrees, the two weep together before sharing a meal, Priam lamenting the loss of his son while Achilles contemplates that he will never see his own father again.
The final book of another Greek classic, “The Odyssey,” brings together a father and son as well. After 10 years of war and as many traveling at sea, Odysseus returns home and goes through a series of reunions, ending with his father, Laertes. When Odysseus meets his father, however, he doesn’t greet him right away. Instead, he pretends to be someone who met Odysseus and lies about his location.
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