Category: US politics

The Bank of America vice president fatally stabbed in Times Square was a new mother on her first week back from maternity leave, according to a report.
​Erin Piacenti, 32, was one of two people randomly attacked a short distance from her firm’s tower block in New York City Monday afternoon.
She had stopped in front of a vendor selling sunglasses while heading home from work she was stabbed, The New York Times reported. NYPD officers shot and killed the attacker, later named as 49 year-old Pamela Cisneros of Queens.
Just days before the fatal incident, Piacenti had posted a picture on social media holding her newborn daughter and grinning, according to The Times.
open image in gallery​Erin Piacenti, 32-year-old executive at Bank of America, was fatally stabbed in Times Square on Monday (Facebook)​“As my maternity leave comes to an end,” she wrote, “I could not be more grateful for every day of the last five months spent with this amazing little girl.”
Piacenti and her husband Frank h..

Water rescues are underway in southern Texas as former Tropical Storm Edouard continued to dump heavy rain, flooding streets and trapping people in their homes.
An unidentified woman and her four children were rescued from their Livingston mobile home after a creek overflowed, according to Click 2 Houston.
And people in the area were pulled from their cars stuck in flooded roads, KTRE said.
A flash flood emergency has been declared in Hardin and Tyler Counties, northeast of Houston, with rain expected to continue throughout the day and into tomorrow.
The storm has dropped 30 inches over Texas in the course of just 24 hours, WFLA meteorologist Jeff Berardelli wrote on social media.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Germany has blamed Russia for an attempted explosive drone attack targeted at Leipzig/Halle Airport last month.
The device was discovered near an aircraft from Ukraine on the evening of 4 August and defused.
German interior minister Alexander Dobrindt stated that the event corresponds with a known pattern of “Russian hybrid operations.”
He said the German government “comes to the conclusion that Russia is responsible for the hybrid attack in Leipzig on 4 August.
“We assume that Germany is the target of further hybrid attacks by ‌Russia,” he added.
Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephu, has ordered a series of measures in response, including the closure of the Russian consulate in Bonn along with the Russian House, a cultural centre in Berlin.
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said “the evidence was clear” and he welcomed the measures after speaking with German chancellor Friedrich Merz.
He wrote on X: “Nato will continue to strengthen our ability to deter and defend all Allies a..

FBI Director Kash Patel has made it easier for people who've previously engaged in prostitution or bestiality to join the bureau's ranks – a change that one former agent called “beyond disturbing.”
The FBI quietly amended its hiring practices earlier this year and will consider applicants for special agent positions and other bureau roles even if they have paid for sex three times or fewer in the last decade, according to a CBS News report last week.
The rules also do not rule out an applicant if they engaged in bestiality, so long as it happened before they turned 18, according to the report.
Before the change, an FBI applicant who engaged in prostitution or bestiality would have been automatically disqualified, according to Daniel Meyer, a Washington lawyer who specializes in background checks and the security-clearance process.
He told Scripps News that admitting to buying sex during a polygraph was typically a “death knell” for an FBI applicant.
open image in galleryUnd..

A Minnesota mother died after re-entering a burning duplex to save her 3-year-old daughter, shielding the toddler with her own body until firefighters reached them.
Bonnie Pierce, 38, was napping inside the St. Paul home when the fire broke out on August 22. Her 12-year-old daughter, Aurora, escaped by kicking out an air conditioning unit and climbing through a window, according to a GoFundMe campaign set up for the family.
Pierce initially made it outside safely, but returned to the blaze after realizing her youngest child, 3-year-old Grace, was still trapped inside. Her sister, Jenny McGovern, noted that Pierce may have assumed the 12-year-old had the toddler with her before stepping outside.
“She’s a hero,” McGovern said, according to CBS News. “She died a hero. She's my hero forever. I cannot thank her enough for saving that little girl’s life.”
First responders encountered significant fire, extreme heat and near-zero visibility on the first floor of the East Magnolia Avenue ..

Prediction platform Kalshi has handed former U.S. congressman George Santos a lifetime ban and fined him $71,356 over allegations of insider trading.
According to a disciplinary filing released by the firm, its compliance team determined there was reasonable cause to conclude that the former lawmaker participated in unlawful trades.
The decision comes amid a surge in questionable transactions across prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, creating fresh oversight hurdles as law enforcement and regulators step up their focus on the expanding industry.
In June, Kalshi referred Santos to the U.S. Department of Justice following the discovery of unusual account activity, a source previously told Reuters.
Santos was ousted from Congress following charges of identity theft and fraud (AFP via Getty Images)Fresh out of prison for wire fraud and identity theft, Santos allegedly began a new scheme by fixing the odds on a bet of whether he would attend President Donald Trump’s State of the..

Dozens of people were evacuated over the weekend from Grand Canyon National Park after flash floods inundated parts of the park.
Bright Angel Canyon, a popular hiking trail into the Grand Canyon, was hit with a spate of flash flooding around 2:30 p.m. Saturday, the National Park Service said.
No injuries were reported, officials said.
The National Park Service said it was conducting an aerial evacuation of “approximately 50 individuals from the Phantom Ranch area.”
“The entirety of the North Kaibab Trail and Phantom Ranch are closed until further notice,” the NPS wrote on social media.
About 50 people were evacuated from Grand Canyon National Park over the weekend due to flash flooding, park officials said (AP2000)Phantom Ranch is a historic lodge in the Grand Canyon National Park near the bottom of the Grand Canyon by Bright Angel Creek.
The flash floods total one-quarter to three-quarters of an inch in 30 minutes, the National Weather Service said.
The rain caused flooding in ..

Passengers sit on top of capsized ferry off coast of CyprusSearch teams are desperately trying to locate 23 people who were aboard a ferry carrying nearly 270 passengers that capsized off the coast of northern Cyprus on Sunday.
At least seven people have died in the incident, self-declared Northern Cyprus prime minister Unal Ustel confirmed, and 237 people have been rescued.
Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman said: “We have still not been ‌able to reach 23 people. Search and rescue teams are working very intensively to find them.
“If there are people still inside the vessel, reaching them does not appear easy at the moment. Efforts are being made using other technologies to reach them as well.”
The catamaran-style boat was travelling from the port of Kyrenia, also known as Girne, in the breakaway north of ethnically divided Cyprus, to the Turkish port of Tasucu in Mersin province.
Mr Ustel said the ferry faced adverse weather conditions and began taking in water just 15 minutes afte..

President Donald Trump faced backlash over his latest attack on a female reporter, whom he called “unattractive,” a “stalker” and derisively nicknamed after insect larvae.
The presidential tirade came after The New York Times reported Thursday that Trump planned to skip the 25th-anniversary commemoration of the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York — in part because he had not been allowed to deliver a speech.
Maggie Haberman, a veteran journalist who has long been a target of the president’s ire, was one of the report’s bylines.
“Maggot Hagerman, the Fake Reporter from The Failing New York Times, an unattractive person both inside and out, and who knows less about me than most reporters on the beat (She’s a SCAMMER!), made up a story that on September 11th,” the 80-year-old president wrote on Truth Social on Friday.
“Maggot Hagerman is a PHONY,” he added. “She’s been falsely writing about me for years — She’s a stalker, and should be forced to turn over any and all money that she’s ..

A New York City mother was found not criminally responsible due to mental disease or defect by a Bronx judge Monday for the 2022 killings of her two young sons at a Bronx family shelter.
Dimone Fleming, 26, is accused of repeatedly stabbing her sons, Daishawn Fleming, 3, and Octavius Canada, 11 months, before submerging them in a bathtub inside an apartment in the Mount Hope area on November 26, 2022. She was 22 at the time of the killings and was initially charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
The prosecution ultimately agreed that Fleming should not face a conventional criminal trial because of the severity of her mental illness. Psychiatrist Dr. Eric Goldsmith determined Fleming was suffering from severe postpartum psychosis, including hallucinations and delusions, and was “grossly psychotic and out of touch with reality,” according to the New York Post. She will avoid prison but remain in custody for psychiatric evaluations.
Fleming believed killing her children was nece..