"We called 911 for almost everything except snitching" reads the first line of an Atlantic article, "How I Became a Police Abolitionist," by social justice activist and lawyer Derecka Purnell. Her deeply personal essay, first published July 6 in the Ideas section, tells of her childhood in a polluted neighborhood surrounded by violence and beset by fear, using one particularly disturbing memory of a police officer shooting their cousin, just a "boy," in the arm for skipping the basketball sign-in sheet in front of Purnell and her sister, who had been playing basketball but were forced to hide "in the locker room for hours afterward."

"When people dismiss abolitionists for not caring about victims or safety," she writes, "they tend to forget that we are those victims, those survivors of violence."

"This story means everything to me," Purnell wrote on Facebook later that day. "I cried a lot while writing it."

An investigation by The Federalist encompassing newspaper archives, police department records, questions to The Atlantic, the police union, and the office of the mayor, however, called the story — including facts about the neighborhood, the timeline of the incident, and if the incident described even happened at all — into question.

Four days, six comment requests, and one follow-up story later, The Atlantic issued a series of major corrections that confirmed The Federalist's investigation — and gutted the Purnell's story of the police violence that made her "a police abolitionist," rendering it a story about a private security guard shooting his adult cousin. Although the updated story no longer involves personally motivated and barely punished police violence against children, it now includes mention of a police investigation. Additionally, a contemporary news article uncovered by The Federalist using the updated timeline details pending police charges against the shooter.

Someone in the neighborhood, it appears, called 911.

Portland protesters barricaded federal officers inside a courthouse — and tried to set the building on fire — as the two groups clashed again Tuesday night into Wednesday.

As hundreds chanted "Black lives matter" and "Feds go home," a team of protesters propped several wooden beams and sandbags against a door to the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse, according to tweets from Clypian, an online news outlet run by South Salem High School students.

Videos posted by Clypian throughout the night show protesters yanking off plywood covering another entrance and the feds launching tear gas and pepper bombs at the crowds. At one point, someone tosses a firework at the officers, which explodes at their feet.

Another video showed the plywood facade of the courthouse — which has been routinely attacked as the feds stand guard inside — on fire, prompting a stream of officers to pour out.


Protests have been raging in Portland for more than 50 days — but tensions between demonstrators and police have escalated in recent days following President Trump's deployment of federal officers to the city.

A total of 114 federal officers were sent to the West Coast city, including from the Federal Protective Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, US Customs and Border Protection and the US Marshals Service, USA Today reported, citing documents filed Tuesday.

The Gardaí may may need to call to people's doors if they refuse to come for a Covid-19 test, a TD has said.

Fine Gael TD Fergus O'Dowd told the Dail Covid-19 committee 1,314 people who are a direct contact of a person who has a confirmed case of Covid-19, have not turned up for a test.

"That seems like a very high figure to me," he told the committee.

O'Dowd said could call to their homes and ask them to take a test as it is a serious public health issue.

He said: "I think it is a huge figure and you need to do more work on it. If it means that the Gardai (may need to) call to them.. You know who these people are - it is not a question that they are unknown.

The latest claims against the network are riddled with basic factual errors

The new lawsuit filed by two women against Fox News and several of its personalities is riddled with inaccuracies. This raises questions about the veracity of its claims. Jennifer Eckhart and Cathy Areu, a former Fox Business producer and frequent network guest, respectively, claim that they suffered sexual misconduct, harassment, and even rape at the hands of Ed Henry, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Howard Kurtz.

The lawsuit immediately made waves in the mainstream media, where it was picked up by the New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, CBS News, and other major outlets. It has been a top trending topic on Twitter since its filing. However, a review of several claims made in the suit reveals many basic inaccuracies. A lawyer for Eckhart and Areu admitted to The Spectator that errors were made in the filing, and The Spectator has learned that Carlson's wife was with him the evening Areu claims that he told her he would be alone.

A charred body was found in the wreckage of a Minneapolis pawnshop this week — nearly two months after the building was burned down in the protests that followed George Floyd's police-custody death.

Investigators were acting on a tip when they found the man's body in the rubble of Max It Pawn on East Lake Street in south Minneapolis, police spokesman John Elder told the Star Tribune.

"The body appears to have suffered thermal injury and we do have somebody charged with setting fire to that place," Elder told the paper.

Twitter Inc said on Tuesday it would permanently suspend accounts that violate its policies while tweeting about QAnon, a fringe group that claims 'deep-state' traitors are plotting against US President Donald Trump.


Twitter, which announced the change on its Twitter Safety page, said it would not serve content and accounts associated with QAnon in trends and recommendations, and would block URLs associated with the group from being shared on the platform.

The suspension, which will be rolled out this week, is expected to impact about 150,000 accounts globally, Twitter said.

Singer Madonna has boasted about an unpaid "one million dollar fine," which she says the Russian government slapped her with for speaking in favor of gay rights at a concert. The only problem is, the story is completely false.

"I made this speech in St. Petersburg eight years ago," the musician posted to her social media this week. Included was footage from the 2012 concert where she says "gay people, here and around the world" deserve the "same rights" as everyone else.

"I was fined one million dollars by The government for supporting the Gay community. I never paid," she proudly wrote in her post.

While numerous mainstream media outlets have reported Madonna's claim without pushing back against it in any real way, there are huge errors in her story.

Trains on Moscow's vast subway network will be fitted with surveillance cameras linked to facial recognition systems, according to a tender from Moscow's mayoral office.

Media reports suggest that the Moscow authorities will spend 1.4 billion rubles ($20 million) on equipping around a quarter of the system's carriages. They plan to install eight cameras in each car, all with the ability to distinguish faces. By the end of the year, 1,500 will be fully kitted out.

Moscow already has a vast facial recognition system throughout the city. During the Covid-19 quarantine, the city's CCTV cameras were used to track people violating self-isolation orders or evading other coronavirus-related measures.

In January 2020, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin announced that the metro facial recognition system would be implemented by September 1, enabling "people on the wanted list" to be recognized in a split second.

The city's coronavirus tracing program will start asking people if they've been at outdoor bars and restaurants to help understand the spike in cases among those between the ages of 20 and 29 — even though health officials never asked if people attended the George Floyd protests, The Post has learned.

"Patients are asked who they spent close time with socially. To ensure we're adapting our program to New Yorkers' changing routes, patients will explicitly be asked if they spent time with their close contact at a bar or restaurant as the city continues to reopen," said City Hall spokeswoman Avery Cohen said, while reaffirming they won't be asked about demonstrations.

"People are asked to name any gatherings they have attended to help identify cases related to specific events," Cohen said. "Regarding bars and restaurants, we're adapting the program to match the increased mobility of New Yorkers, especially those in the younger age brackets."

The city's Dept. of Health found that the proportion of 20-somethings diagnosed with COVID-19 doubled during the second half of June. The new cases were less likely to live in the Bronx and more likely to reside in wealthier neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan including the Financial District and Greenwich Village, according to lab reports.

People in France will be compelled to wear face-masks in closed public spaces from Monday, a measure to stem the coronavirus transmission in the country.

It was revealed by the country's Health Directorate - Direction générale de la Santé, also knows as DGS - to news agency AFP on Sunday.

Venues concerned include meeting and performance halls, cinemas, restaurants, hotels, game rooms, educational centres, holiday centres, libraries, places of worship, indoor sports venues, museums, stations and airports.

"Stores, shopping centres, administrations, banks and covered markets" have also been added to the list, the DGS said, while masks remain mandatory on public transport too.