deconstruct

House Democrats on Tuesday said they do not plan to save Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) when a vote on ousting him from the top spot hits the floor later in the day.

Emerging from a more than two-hour meeting in the Capitol, House Democrats said they will vote to oust McCarthy from the Speakership.

“We are following our leader and we are not saving Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters.

Asked if a decision was made as a caucus not to support McCarthy, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) responded, “yes.”

This news follows McCarthy's statement that he won't give Dems anything to save his Speakership.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4235572-mccarthy-says-he-wont-give-democrats-anything-in-exchange-for-support-as-speaker/

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden are facing a barrage of questions about whether they made a secret side deal on Ukraine funding, after McCarthy headed off a government shutdown by dropping the funding from a last-minute, short-term spending bill over the weekend. The measure passed the House with the support of all the Democrats except one, and lost the votes of 90 Republicans.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, who says he plans to file a motion to oust McCarthy as speaker within days, spoke on the House floor Monday, demanding to know "what was the secret side deal on Ukraine?"

He accused McCarthy of "cutting a side deal to bring Ukraine legislation" to the floor in a vote separate from the short-term spending bill.

The president himself certainly fueled the idea, when CBS News asked him on Sunday, "Are you going to be able to trust Speaker McCarthy when the next deal comes around?"

"We just made one about Ukraine," he replied. "So, we'll find out."

For now, House GOP leadership deny there's a deal. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mccarthy-allies-deny-existence-of-ukraine-back-deal/ar-AA1hAN2w

FC Cincinnati have reached a milestone moment by winning the 2023 Supporters’ Shield, climbing from Major League Soccer’s basement to peak.

The Shield – awarded annually to the team with the most regular-season points – accentuates Cincy’s transformation under head coach Pat Noonan and general manager Chris Albright, an ex-Philadelphia Union duo now in their second full season in charge.

A member of the Proud Boys extremist group who disappeared days before he was supposed to be sentenced for his role in the U.S. Capitol riot was found unconscious by federal agents after he tried to “covertly return” to his home, the FBI said on Friday.

Christopher Worrell, of Naples, Florida, was taken to a hospital where he remained on Friday, according to the FBI’s Tampa office. The FBI did not provide further details about his condition.

Authorities had been searching for weeks for Worrell, who had been on house arrest when he went missing last month ahead of his sentencing in Washington. Prosecutors had been seeking 14 years in prison for Worrell on convictions for assault, obstruction of Congress and other offenses.

The FBI said that agents quickly surrounded and entered Worrell’s home on Thursday after he returned, found the man unconscious and “immediately provided medical attention.” Authorities say agents found night-vision goggles, $4,000 in cash, and survivalist gear in his home.

Worrell, 52, was convicted after a bench trial in May of assaulting officers with pepper spray gel as the mob of Donald Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Authorities say Worrell, dressed in tactical vest, bragged that he “deployed a whole can” and shouted insults at officers, calling them “commies” and “scum.”

Prosecutors say Worrell then lied on the witness stand at trial, claiming that he was actually spraying other rioters. The judge called that claim “preposterous,” prosecutors said in court papers.

Suicide bombings ripped through two religious ceremonies in Pakistan Friday, killing at least 56 people and injuring dozens more as worshipers celebrated the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad, according to police and local officials.

At least 52 people were killed and a further 50 wounded by an explosion at a religious procession in the Mastung district of the southwestern Balochistan province, Assistant Commissioner Atta Ul Munim told CNN.

Hours later, a separate blast took place during Friday prayers at a mosque near Peshaway City in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing at least four people and injuring 11. The explosion caused the roof of the mosque to collapse, but it was not clear how many people remained inside.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for either of the explosions, which struck during a restive period in Pakistan, as it has weathered a surge of militant attacks in the buildup to general elections being held in January.

A judge denied former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark’s attempt to move his Georgia charges to federal court Friday, dealing another significant blow to the early defense strategy being pursued by several charged individuals in former President Trump’s Georgia case.

Like the others, Clark argued he was acting in his capacity as a federal official, an assertion that, if accepted, could provide a pathway for him to assert immunity.

But U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, an Obama appointee, in a 31-page ruling rejected Clark’s argument Friday, the second such time Jones has done so for a defendant.

“The Court concludes that Clark has not submitted evidence to meet his burden to show that his actions were causally related to his federal office,” Jones wrote in his decision.

He previously rejected an attempt mounted by Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, though Meadows is appealing. Jones has not yet ruled on the requests to move courts filed by the three “fake electors” charged in the indictment.

Tens of thousands of mattresses that were sold exclusively at Costco stores have been recalled due to the risk of possible mold exposure.

Manufacturer FXI Inc. initially announced the recall of Novaform ComfortGrande 14-inch mattresses and Novaform DreamAway 8-inch mattresses in June and issued a joint press release with the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday. According to FXI, the recalled mattresses could have been exposed to water during manufacturing, leading to potential mold development.

Recalled mattresses were manufactured in a variety of sizes, from twin to California king, and ranged in price from $150 to $750. All of the Novaform mattresses were sold between January and June this year at Costco stores and on Costco's website in northwestern states, as well as California's San Francisco Bay area. Costco, according to the CPSC, is reaching out to known customers who purchased the recalled products directly as well.

The CPSC said FXI has received reports of 541 cases of mold on mattresses but no related injuries have been reported so far.

An embattled Louisiana police department has been hit with a second lawsuit alleging officers from a street crime unit dragged detainees to an unmarked warehouse dubbed the “Brave Cave,” where they were assaulted, stripped and subjected to body cavity searches.

The latest allegations against the Baton Rouge Police Department were detailed in a lawsuit filed Monday by Ternell Brown, a 47-year-old grandmother, who said she was taken to a “torture warehouse” after officers making a traffic stop found bottles of legal prescription medication in her car.

“She was forced to show officers that she was not hiding contraband in her vagina or rectum,” the Baton Rouge woman’s complaint stated. “After more than two hours, they let her go without charge.”Brown’s lawsuit, which also named the city and the parish of Baton Rouge and several officers as defendants, was filed a month after another resident, Jeremy Lee, filed a lawsuit alleging that he was taken in January to the “Brave Cave” and beaten by the officers.

The street crime unit called BRAVE, short for Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination, was disbanded after Lee filed his lawsuit, which included a body camera image of the 22-year-old perched on a chair in what appears to be a mostly empty warehouse.

"It’s essentially an unmarked interrogation warehouse where Baton Rouge citizens have been getting taken for years, strip-searched and sometimes beaten," Thomas Frampton, an attorney for Lee and Brown, said Thursday.

The officers named in the lawsuits "are well known for their brutality in the Baton Rouge community," Frampton said.

Lee was “left so badly beaten that the local jail refused to admit him until he was treated by a nearby hospital,” his complaint states. “There he was treated for broken bones and other injuries.”

Nearly three months into taking Ozempic for diabetes, Jenny Kent had already lost 12 pounds, and her blood sugar numbers were looking better than they had in a while.

Ozempic, the injectable drug approved for Type 2 diabetes, has taken the world by storm.

But for Kent something else changed after she started taking Ozempic.

"I was just constantly in a state of being overwhelmed," says Kent. "So my response to that was just I was just crying all the time. Sobbing, crying ... I still didn't put it together, so I kept ... taking my injections."

She's one of many people taking Ozempic and related drugs who describe mental health problems. But that side effect isn't mentioned in Ozempic's instructions for use, or drug label.

In July, the European Medicines Agency said that it was looking into the risk of thoughts of self-harm and suicidal thoughts with the use of Ozempic and similar drugs. As of July 11, the regulator, Europe's FDA, was evaluating more than 150 reports.

The FDA hasn't taken that step. For now, the agency is monitoring the situation. "We continue to conclude that the benefits of these medications outweigh their risks when they are used according to the FDA approved labeling," spokesperson Chanapa Tantibanchachai said in an email to NPR. She noted that weight-loss drug Wegovy, which contains the same active ingredient as Ozempic, semaglutide, includes a warning about suicidal thoughts on its label.

Even though the link between these drugs and mental health concerns isn't definitive, it's important that patients talk with doctors if they experience something unusual, says Dr. Jonathan Alpert, who chairs the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

"I always think it makes sense to take side effects like that seriously, particularly in drugs that are relatively new and that we're still learning about," he says.

Senate Republicans are predicting that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will need to reach out to House Democrats to get the votes to prevent a government shutdown at the end of next week.

GOP senators don’t think McCarthy will be able to unify his entire GOP conference behind any measure to prevent an Oct. 1 shutdown and will have to rely on Democrats to keep federal departments and agencies open.

But they predict the Speaker won’t reach out across the aisle until the last possible moment to avoid a backlash from House conservatives, who are threatening to offer a motion to essentially dump him as Speaker if he does not hew to their demands for major spending cuts.

The reality, they say, is that the only spending measure that can pass both the Senate and House is one that has bipartisan support.

A Wyoming ranch accused of abusing children and forcing them to perform manual labor lost its license earlier this year after state officials documented a litany of safety and sanitary violations. But the ranch found a way to stay open and will no longer need a license to care for children, a development that has alarmed youth rights advocates.

The Wyoming Department of Family Services in June revoked the group home license from Triangle Cross Ranch, a facility that claims it can help transform teenage boys from misbehaving rebels into “thoughtful, respectful, and responsible young men” for a $5,800 monthly fee.

The facility, which typically has five or fewer boys enrolled at a time, will now operate without a license because the owner said last month he was appointed guardian of the youth living there, a department spokesman said. The spokesman said the owner provided copies of the paperwork, which was filed in Wyoming.

And state officials will no longer conduct regular welfare inspections going forward due to another licensing exemption for ranches or farms that do not offer services to children who are homeless, delinquent or have an intellectual disability, according to the department’s rules.

“It’s incredibly troubling that they would have decided to go this route after losing their license to be a child caring facility,” said Donna Sheen, founder and director of the Wyoming Children’s Law Center, a nonprofit. She noted that the Department of Family Services will now need a specific allegation or complaint in order to investigate the ranch.

An NBC News investigation last year found that the ranch and Trinity Teen Solutions, a facility for girls run by the same family, had operated in rural Wyoming for years despite repeated complaints from youth of cruel and humiliating treatment. State inspectors documented numerous red flags at Triangle Cross Ranch, including misrepresenting its services, punishing boys for speaking with state officials and complaining about their treatment, and making children physically restrain each other.

Andrew Scavuzzo, who sued Triangle Cross Ranch over abuse he alleged took place at the ranch in 2012, said he’d been branded with a hot iron when he was a boy at the facility. He said he also had to haul dead animal carcasses, was forced by staff to huff gasoline and that boys had to box each other as punishment.

In April, a department official observed broken windows, and doors and lights that did not work during an inspection of the ranch. There was also a dead calf that had been lying in the yard for three days and the inspector witnessed a dog eating it. Youth were left alone while a staff member napped, inspection files show. Officials also noted that weapons, such as a large knife, and tobacco products were left lying unattended at the ranch.

The state found that one boy had to be taken to a hospital for self-harming after the ranch failed to give him his medication for 26 days. The ranch refused to take the boy back because he was too high risk, so he was sent to another group home, records show.

Inspectors found that Schneider, the ranch owner, had also moved the children to Montana earlier this year to hide them from state officials.

At the last inspection of the ranch in July, the state found additional violations, including an adult living in the children’s bunk house, lack of background checks, and one of two youth residing there without any bedding. Again, there was feces on the floor.

This time next year, a series of massive dams that block off the Klamath River will no longer exist. The soil and rocks originally dug and transported from a nearby mountain in the 1950s will be returned to their home and the river will run freely again.

The Iron Gate Dam, which opened in 1964 as the last of four dams that, at nearly 200 feet tall each, regulated the flow of the river and time releases for the local water supply in Northern California, is now part of the world’s largest dam removal and river restoration project. Iron Gate is scheduled to be the final stop for decommissioning crews.

Mark Bransom, the CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, said the river will be able to flow freely once the dam’s infrastructure is removed. He also said they have plans to help nature take back the area.

“As soon as the reservoir is drained, we’ll get out on the footprint there and begin some initial restoration activity,” Bransom said. “We want to stabilize the remaining sediments using native vegetation.”

In the age of extreme heat, record-setting drought and catastrophic flooding linked to climate change, there’s been a national push to “rewild,” a movement rooted in restoring nature to the state it was before human intervention, hoping this helps mitigate the effects of climate change.

A big part of that effort is centered around dams, many of which were originally constructed when infrastructural development took priority over environmental protection.