Key points from the Kansas City Attorney General’s legal report on the case against Pfizer:

1. Pfizer misled the public.

• In May 2021, Pfizer advertised to Kansans on Facebook about its “life-saving vaccines” and its “cures.” Upon information and belief, Pfizer intended for Kansans to think of its COVID-19 vaccine when it discussed “life-saving vaccines” and “cures.” Pfizer ran three different ads between May 4, 2021 and June 1, 2021 that received 165,000 to 190,000 impressions.”
• Pfizer received emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine in individuals 16 years of age and older on December 11, 2020.
• Pfizer received FDA approval on August 23, 2021. From 2021 to 2023, Pfizer received emergency use authorizations in children from six months to 15 years of age.

2. Pfizer used confidentiality agreements to conceal critical data relating to the safety and effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine.

• Pfizer effectively had a veto over the federal government’s communications.

3. Pfizer used its confidentiality agreements with the US government and others to conceal, suppress, and omit material facts relating to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, including the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

4. Pfizer used an extended study timeline to conceal critical data – the study was repeatedly delayed.

• Pfizer planned to provide researchers with access to patient-level data and full clinical study reports 24 months after study completion. Protocol C4591001
• Pfizer estimated that it would complete the study by January 27, 2023, but that estimated date fell back to February 2024 because of a late vaccination of a single study participant (out of 44,000 participants).
• Pfizer’s control of the data allowed the company to selectively publish results for which the underlying data could not be independently evaluated.

5. Pfizer says it will make data from vaccine trials approved in the US available 18 months after the primary study completion date. Pfizer, Data Access Requests.

• Upon information and belief, Pfizer has still not made its complete study data available to researchers.

6. The FDA did not make the safety and effectiveness data for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine immediately available.

• The FDA denied expedited processing of PHMPTA’s FOIA request and claimed in litigation that it would take 55 years—until 2076
• In January 2022, a federal judge rejected the FDA’s proposed production of 500 pages per month and ordered the FDA to instead produce 55,000 pages per month

7. Pfizer destroyed the vaccine control group.

• Pfizer planned to follow COVID-19 vaccine study participants, both vaccine and placebo recipients for 24 months to monitor the safety and effectiveness of its vaccine.
• Once the FDA approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine through an emergency use authorization in December 2020, Pfizer unblinded the study participants and offered vaccine placebo recipients the option to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine
• Only 1,544 placebo participants had not received the vaccine as of March 13, 2021, just 7% of the original placebo group.

8. In its press release announcing emergency use authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer did not disclose that it had excluded immunocompromised individuals from its COVID-19 vaccine trials.

• Instead, in “Important Safety Information” in its press release, Pfizer noted that
• “[i]mmunocompromised persons, including individuals receiving immunosuppressant therapy, may have a diminished immune response to the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.”

9. Pfizer knew its COVID-19 vaccine was connected to serious adverse events, including myocarditis and pericarditis.

• Pfizer maintained its own adverse events database that “contain[ed] cases of [adverse events (AEs)] reported spontaneously to Pfizer, cases reported by the health authorities, cases published in the medical literature, cases from Pfizer-sponsored marketing programs, non-interventional studies, and cases of serious AEs reported from clinical studies regardless of causality assessment.”
• Upon information and belief, Pfizer’s adverse events database contained more adverse event data than VAERS because it included both information in VAERS and information not in VAERS.

10. The United States military detected a safety signal for myocarditis.

• In early 2021, the U.S. military noticed cases of myocarditis in male military members occurring within four days of administration of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. When the Department of Defense reviewed its health system data for 2021, it found that “[t]hose who were recently vaccinated had a rate ratio that showed their incidences of myocarditis and pericarditis were 2.6 and 2.0 times higher compared to those who were never vaccinated.”
• On March 3, 2021, Israel’s Ministry of Health contacted the CDC about myocarditis and pericarditis connected to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine: “We are seeing a large number of myocarditis and pericarditis cases in young individuals soon after Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. We would like to discuss the issue with a relevant expert at CDC.”
• Upon information and belief, Pfizer had knowledge of the medical reports in Israel related to its vaccine and myocarditis and pericarditis because Israel agreed to share medical data with Pfizer.
• At the time of Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla’s January 18, 2023 denial of any safety signals, the CDC’s website reported that “[d]ata from multiple studies show a rare risk for myocarditis and/or pericarditis following receipt of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines
• According to a leaked confidential February 2022 Pfizer document, “[s]ince April 2021, increased cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been reported in the United States after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna), particularly in adolescents and young adults (CDC 2021).”

11. After Pfizer obtained FDA approval through emergency use authorization to provide its COVID-19 vaccine to 12-15-year-olds in August 2021, Pfizer decided to study “how often” its vaccine may cause myocarditis or pericarditis in children by testing 5-16-year-olds for troponin I.

• Pfizer warned children participants that after receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine,“[y]ou might get chest pain, shortness of breath, or feelings of having a fast-beating, fluttering or pounding heart. You may need to come in to see the study doctor for further assessments if you have these symptoms.”
• Pfizer press releases did not disclose an increased risk of myocarditis from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine until November 2021. Posts falsely claim Pfizer ‘officially admits’ heart inflammation is COVID jab side effect in 2023,
• Upon information and belief, at the time of Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla’s January 2023 representation that Pfizer had not observed a single safety signal related to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer was aware of a safety signal relating to myocarditis and pericarditis.

12. Upon information and belief, Pfizer also detected a safety signal relating to strokes.

• Days before Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla denied any safety signal, the CDC’s and FDA’s “surveillance system flagged a possible link between the new Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent COVID-19 vaccine and strokes in people aged 65 and over, . .
• Although CDC later suggested a link was “very unlikely,” a FDA study found that individuals 85 years or older who received both a flu vaccine and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine“saw a 20 percent increase in the risk of ischemic stroke.”

13. Pfizer’s knowledge of a safety signal for increased fatalities

• Upon information and belief, Pfizer also detected a safety signal relating to deaths. As of February 28, 2021, Pfizer’s adverse events database contained 1,223 fatalities after taking Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

14. Pfizer only tested the booster shot on 12 trial participants who were in the 65- to 85-year-old age range.

• Pfizer should not have represented that the booster was “safe” for 65- to 85-year-olds after only testing 12 trial participants in that age range.

15. Pfizer did not test the booster on any participant older than 85 years old.

• Pfizer should not have represented that the booster was “safe” for individuals 85 years old and older when it had not tested any trial participants in that age range.

16. Pfizer did not publicly release adverse event data from its database.

• As of February 28, 2021, Pfizer’s adverse events database contained 158,893 adverse events (from 42,086 case reports) from its COVID-19 vaccine.
• As of February 28, 2021, Pfizer’s database contained 1,223 fatalities after taking Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, although Pfizer did not make causality findings.
• Pfizer was receiving so many adverse events reports that it had to hire 600 additional full-time staff and expected to hire more than 1,800 additional resources by June 2021
• Pfizer had such a backlog of adverse events that it might take 90 days to code “nonserious cases.” Pfizer did not know “the magnitude of underreporting

17. Pfizer announces study on pregnant women but omits material facts already in its possession.

• More than 1-in-10 women (52) who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine during their pregnancy reported a miscarriage, many within days of vaccination.
• Six women who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine during their pregnancy reported premature deliveries; several babies died.

18. Pfizer’s February 18, 2021, press release also did not disclose other adverse effects on the reproductive systems of women who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

• For example, by April 2022, Pfizer knew of tens of thousands of adverse events connected to its COVID-19 vaccine including heavy menstrual bleeding (27,685); menstrual disorders (22,145); irregular periods (15,083); delayed periods (13,989); absence of periods(11,363); and other reproductive system effects.

19. Pfizer’s study on pregnant women failed and the results are secret.

• Pfizer sought to study approximately 4,000 healthy pregnant women. Pfizer and BioNTech Commence Global Clinical Trial to Evaluate COVID-19 Vaccine in Pregnant Women, Feb. 18, 2021. However, Pfizer only enrolled a fraction of this amount (683) in its study.
• Upon information and belief, Pfizer destroyed the placebo control group during the study, preventing Pfizer from evaluating differences in safety and efficacy between vaccinated pregnant women and unvaccinated pregnant women.
• Although Pfizer completed its study of its COVID-19 vaccine on pregnant women on July 15, 2022, it still has not completed the quality control review process for the study.

20. Pfizer concealed critical safety information from the public

• Pfizer only tested its COVID-19 vaccine on healthy individuals. Pfizer’s representations that its COVID-19 vaccine did not have any safety concerns failed to disclose the material facts that it had only been tested on healthy individuals.

21. Pfizer claimed that a “primary endpoint” of the trial of its COVID-19 vaccine was “prevention of COVID-19 regardless of whether participants have previously been infected by SARS-CoV-2.

• Pfizer’s statement was misleading since it had excluded any individual who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 from its vaccine trial.

22. Pfizer misrepresented and concealed material facts relating to the durability of protection provided by its COVID-19 vaccine.

• In November 2020, Pfizer announced, “[p]rimary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose.”
• Pfizer did not report the absolute risk reduction of its COVID-19 vaccine, which was just 0.84%. On February 25, 2021, when asked in an interview how long Pfizer’s COVID-19 two-dose vaccine provided protection, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla stated, “at six months, the protection is robust.”
• On April 1, 2021, Pfizer issued a press release that celebrated “high efficacy” in

23. Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine through up to six months after the second dose. Pfizer and BioNTech Confirm High Efficacy and No Serious Safety Concerns Through Up to Six Months Following Second Dose in Updated Topline Analysis of Landmark COVID-19 Vaccine Study, Pfizer, Apr. 1.

• Pfizer represented that “[a]nalysis of 927 confirmed symptomatic cases of COVID-19 demonstrates BNT162b2 is highly effective with 91.3% vaccine efficacy observed against COVID-19, measured seven days through up to six months after the second dose.”
• Pfizer cited data in its press release that also appears in a Pfizer efficacy summary document.
• In its efficacy summary document, Pfizer reported an 83.7% efficacy rate four months after the second dose of its COVID-19 vaccine. Id. at 68.
• In its efficacy summary document, Pfizer reported blood sample data showing effectiveness continued to wane at six months.

24. Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine would prevent transmission even though it knew it had never studied the effect of its vaccine on transmission

• When the FDA issued the Emergency Use Authorization for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020, the FDA reported that there was no “evidence that the vaccine prevents transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from person to person.” FDA
• According to Pfizer’s trial protocol, evaluating transmission was not an objective of the trial.

25. Despite admissions by Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla and Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb that Pfizer did not know if its vaccine prevented transmission, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla warned Kansans on multiple occasions that not receiving a COVID-19 vaccine would affect the lives of those around them, thus implying that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine prevented transmission.

• “I repeat once more, that this choice not to vaccinate will not affect only your health or your life. Unfortunately, it will affect the lives of others and likely the lives of the people you love the most, who are the people that usually you are in contact with.” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla CNBC (Dec. 14, 2020).
• “What I would say to people who fear the vaccine is that they need to recognize that the decision to take it or not will not affect only their own lives. It will affect the lives of others. And most likely it will affect the lives of people that they love the most, who are the people that they socialize the most with.” John Micklethwait, Pfizer CEO BLOOMBERG, Jan. 28, 2021.
• June 2021: “I try to explain to them that the decision to vaccinate or not is not only going to affect only your life. . . . But unfortunately will affect the health of others and likely will affect the health of people you like and you love the most. . . . When you try to explain that their fear could stand in the way of protecting their loved ones, I think this is the argument that mostly works. CEO ‘ CBS NEWS (June 15, 2021).
• November 2021: “The only thing that stands between the new way of life and the current way of life, frankly, is the hesitancy to get vaccinated, the people that are afraid to get the vaccines, and they create issues not only for them. Unfortunately, they are going to affect the lives of others and, frankly, the lives of the people that they love the most because they are putting at risk the people that they hug, they kiss, [and] they socialize with.” Pfizer’s Albert Bourla
• In December 2021, a Pfizer press release quoted Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla in a manner that again suggested that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine prevented transmission: “Ensuring as many people as possible are fully vaccinated with the first two dose series and a booster remains the best course of action to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
• Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb also represented to Kansans that Pfizer’s COVID-19 prevented transmission: “And final point, I mean, some of the optimism is also being driven by growing science, suggesting that these vaccines, all the vaccines not only prevent COVID disease, prevent symptoms, but also prevent transmission. So they could have a dramatic effect on reducing the overall tenor of the epidemic.” CBS News, Mar. 7, 2021.113
• In 2022, Pfizer partnered with Marvel to produce an “Avengers”-themed comic book that called individuals waiting for a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine “Everyday Heroes.” See Avengers: Everyday Heroes, 2022.

According to one of the characters in the Pfizer comic book, “it’s also important for entire communities to come together and help fight the threat.” “And that’s exactly what we’re doing today!” says another character. As the group heads to the examination room to get their Pfizer COVID-19 vaccinations, the first character announces, “The Avengers are doing their part to help keep us safe. Now it’s time for us to do ours.”

• One of the final pages reinforces the need for individuals to get a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in order to protect the community. “Everyday heroes don’t wear capes! But they do wear a small bandage on their upper arm after they get their latest COVID-19 vaccination—because everyday heroes are concerned about their health. And they’re people who choose to unite with their communities and do their part to help protect against COVID-19.”

26. Pfizer worked to censor speech on social media that questioned Pfizer’s claims.

• Pfizer’s view was that “misinformation spreaders” are “criminals” who have “literally cost millions of lives”
• On July 19, 2021, Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb claimed social media companies had an “obligation” and an “affirmative responsibility” to prevent the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on their platforms.
• Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla called people who spread misinformation on COVID-19 vaccines “criminals” who have “literally cost millions of lives.”

27. Pfizer worked to conceal and suppress material facts.

• On August 24, 2021, Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb contacted Twitter to complain about a column written by Alex Berenson that criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci. “This is whats [sic] promoted on Twitter. This is why Tony needs a security detail,”
• On August 27, 2021, Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb had a conference call with Twitter employees to discuss Mr. Berenson. Twitter banned Mr. Berenson the next day.
• On Friday, August 27, 2021, Dr. Brett P. Giroir, who served as the assistant secretary for health from 2018 to 2021 and approximately one month as the acting FDA Commissioner in late 2019, posted to Twitter that natural immunity was superior to vaccine immunity. Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Twitter Files: Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb flagged tweets questioning COVID vaccine, FOX NEWS (Jan. 9, 2023).120
• In response, Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb reached out to Twitter’s top lobbyist in Washington, D.C., to complain that the post was “corrosive,” “draws a sweeping conclusion,” and “will end up going viral and driving news coverage.”
• The Twitter lobbyist forwarded Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb’s email to the Twitter “Strategic Response” team, which “later slapped [Girori’s tweet] with a ‘misleading’ label and blocked any ability to like or share the tweet.”
• On December 11, 2020, the same day that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine received emergency use authorization from the FDA, a Zoom calendar appointment entitled “Vaccine Disinformation Response” invited personnel at the Department of Health and Human Services, Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies, and Stanford University to discuss “a coalition to respond to COVID-19 vaccine disinformation.”
• Shortly after the December 11, 2020 meeting, Stanford University co-launched the Virality Project. For at least the next year, Stanford and members of the Virality Project pressured social media companies to conceal and suppress information about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, including information about safety and efficacy.

Former President Trump took a victory lap on Truth Social Saturday, saying President Biden “choked” during their CNN debate — and was perhaps in a “trance.”

“I watched a man, first hand, ‘CHOKE’ under tremendous pressure, the likes of which he has never seen before,” Trump said in an early morning post.

“This was a ‘MONSTER’ show, and it could be plainly and openly felt onstage.”

During a campaign rally in Raleigh, NC, Friday, Biden spoke with more verve and energy — something many Democrats publicly wished he brought with him to the CNN debate.

In his post, Trump also acknowledged his rival’s recovery, but said it wasn’t enough.

“His speech on Friday was better, and he seems to be coming out of his trance, but AMERICA must ask itself, with all of the many dangers around, do we really want a President who CHOKES? I don’t think so!” Trump said.

In a follow-up post, Trump, never bashful about self-praise, declared that he had “the greatest debate performance in the long and storied history of Presidential Debates.”

Biden has faced widespread calls to drop out of the presidential debate after his drubbing from Trump — something he had so far adamantly refused to do. Biden has been powering through the debacle with a series of fundraisers, including in New York City, New Jersey and the Hamptons this weekend.

Top allies like former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have come out in support of Biden and the possibility of an imminent departure from the race appears increasingly remote.

In a massive decision handed down that will limit the power of unelected agencies in the executive branch to interpret laws that Congress had left ambiguous, and a power Democratic administrations have used to impose additional regulations, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to overturn the 1984 ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

“It authorized a massive shift in power from Congress and the courts to the president,” Henry Olsen noted of the Chevron decision. “Most of the administrative agencies subject to Chevron are run by presidential appointments. These officials might have subject matter expertise, but their knowledge does not negate the fact that they make inherently political judgments, which the Constitution envisioned would be made by elected legislators.”

“Under Chevron, a statutory ambiguity, no matter why it is there, becomes a license authorizing an agency to change positions as much as it likes. Chevron accordingly has undermined the very ‘rule of law’ values that stare decisis exists to secure,” Ed Whelan pointed out.

“During Barack Obama’s presidency … courts increasingly relied on Chevron to uphold a slew of new, progressive regulations,” Slate stated in an article titled, “The Supreme Court Is About to Seize Way More Power From Democratic Presidents.”

The case in which the Court overturned the 1984 ruling was Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The plaintiffs, who are fishermen, sued Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. A subagency of the Commerce Department, the National Marine Fisheries Service, forced the fishermen to “pay the salaries of the federal inspectors that federal law forces them to carry aboard their boats,” the Heritage Foundation explained, adding that the fishermen claimed there was no law that the National Marine Fisheries Service could cite giving them the right to force them to do so.

The National Fisheries Service cited the Chevron decision, saying that the law’s silence gave the agency its right to speak. As a result, inspectors’ salaries ought to be paid by fishermen.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled for the Fisheries Service. But in the petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs asked, “Whether the Court should overrule Chevron or at least clarify that statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute does not constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency.”

“Under the Chevron doctrine, courts have sometimes been required to defer to ‘permissible agency interpretations of the statutes those agencies administer—even when a reviewing court reads the statute differently,” the Supreme Court stated. “In each case below, the reviewing courts applied Chevron’s framework to resolve in favor of the Government challenges by petitioners to a rule promulgated by the National Marine Fisheries Service pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which incorporates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).”

“The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous; Chevron is overruled,” the Court ruled.

“Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron’s presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do. The Framers anticipated that courts would often confront statutory ambiguities and expected that courts would resolve them by exercising independent legal judgment. Chevron gravely erred in concluding that the inquiry is fundamentally different just because an administrative interpretation is in play. The very point of the traditional tools of statutory construction is to resolve statutory ambiguities. That is no less true when the ambiguity is about the scope of an agency’s own power—perhaps the occasion on which abdication in favor of the agency is least appropriate,” the Court wrote.

“Today’s decision fixes the decades-long error of handing vague and broad powers to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) responded after the decision was released. “The Supreme Court’s decision restores the Constitutional power to write the law to where it should be—with the elected representatives of the American people.”

The mother of Jocelyn Nungaray, the 12-year-old girl who was allegedly brutalized and murdered by two illegal migrants, was “shocked” when former President Donald Trump spoke with her 10 minutes before he took the debate stage Thursday, The Post can reveal.

Alexis Nungaray’s best friend, Victoria Galvan, who was with the grieving mother when the two spoke, told The Post that Trump conveyed that there was no one he would’ve preferred to talk to before the debate than her.

“He was like, ‘I’m actually about to come on for a debate’ … He gave his condolences, and he said that he would be reaching back out to her,” Galvan said.

“He wanted to … say that he was praying for Alexis and that he’s been thinking about her and he wanted to reach out. He said that he was going to reach out in a couple days to her … I mean, she was really … we were all shocked,” Galvan said.

After the call, Galvan said she and Alexis, who has been staying with her, were talking about how little Jocelyn would’ve been in disbelief over the former president’s attention to her story.

Jocelyn was allegedly killed by two illegal migrants from Venezuela who have both been charged with capital murder after they tortured her for two hours and dumped her half-naked body into a bayou.

The two suspects crossed the southern border illegally and were released by federal authorities months before Jocelyn was killed.

Trump mentioned speaking with Jocelyn’s family on the debate stage while highlighting several high-profile crimes committed by illegal migrants released into the country under President Joe Biden.

A desperate Joe Biden has hit back at the New York Times after it told him to drop out of the presidential race following his disastrous debate.

The Times previously jointly endorsed two Democratic presidential candidates Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren in 2020 instead of Biden.

But despite being snubbed by the prestigious broadsheet, Biden would go on to win his party’s nomination and defeat Trump in November 2020.

A senior adviser to the president told CNN: ‘The last time Joe Biden lost the New York Times editorial board’s endorsement, it turned out pretty well for him.’

On Friday the editorial board of the Times wrote Biden ‘is not the man he was four years ago’ and criticized his rationale for running, saying it was a ‘reckless gamble’.

Meanwhile the fallout from the debate has left Democratic donors floating the idea of an ‘intervention’ led by Obama to get the sitting president to see sense after he was widely mocked for his performance against Trump.

There have been discussions with political advisers about arcane rules under which Biden could be removed from the ticket against his will and replaced at or before the Democratic National Convention in August, according to a person familiar with the effort.

But former US president Barack Obama defended Biden in a Twitter post on Friday.

‘Bad debate nights happen,’ he wrote. ‘But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.’

With only 131 days before the November election, there are a number of practical complications with removing Biden.

Even if he quit, his vice-president Kamala Harris is so unpopular that it is thought by analysts she would not be able to face a forceful campaign against a vigorous Trump.

In an article on Friday titled ‘To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race’, the New York Times blasted his continued attempts to run as a ‘reckless gamble’ with the country’s future.

They said that the country needed ‘a stronger opponent’ to stand in the way of the ‘significant jeopardy to… democracy’ – a threat characterised by the Republican leader.

In a damning blow, the newspaper’s editorial board said: ‘There is no reason for the party to risk the stability and security of the country by forcing voters to choose between Mr. Trump’s deficiencies and those of Mr. Biden. It’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr. Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes.’

They continued: ‘The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can’t continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November.

‘It is the best chance to protect the soul of the nation — the cause that drew Mr. Biden to run for the presidency in 2019 — from the malign warping of Mr. Trump. And it is the best service that Mr. Biden can provide to a country that he has nobly served for so long.’

The brutal indictment comes despite a defiant Biden insisting last night that he could still win the election – as he refused to pull the plug on his bid for a second term.

Although the New York Times has become the first US newspaper to call on Biden to drop out of the race, other influential publications including the Financial Times and the Atlantic have published articles by their leading columnists calling on Biden to step aside.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board published an article which stated the debate showed the President clearly isn’t up to four more years in office – calling the decision ‘not partisan thought; it’s a patriotic one’.

The Economist, another influential worldwide news provider, previously called on Biden to step down in November 2022 and put the concern on its front page in January.

It has now doubled down on its belief and called for Biden to throw in the towel once again.

Meanwhile a Silicon Valley group of megadonors, including Ron Conway and Laurene Powell Jobs, were calling, texting and emailing one another about a situation they described as a possible catastrophe, according to CNN.

The donors wondered about whom in the Biden fold they could contact to reach Jill Biden, the first lady, who is thought to be able to persuade her husband not to run.

One Silicon Valley donor who had planned to host an intimate fund-raiser featuring Biden this summer has reportedly decided not to go through with the gathering because of the debate calamity.

Another major California donor left a debate watch party early and emailed a friend with the subject line: ‘Utter disaster’.

The crisis in the donor class could not come at a worse moment for Biden as his opponent Trump has outraised him in each of the last two months, erasing the president’s once gaping financial advantage and opening one of his own.

The donor worries come after Biden meandered through the 90-minute CNN spectacle, struggling to finish sentences and losing his train of thought multiple times in front of tens of millions of stunned TV viewers.

CNN, the broadcaster who hosted the debate, said it was viewed by 48 million people on television and millions more online.

The Texas State Supreme Court upheld a law which bans transgender healthcare for minors in an 8-1 ruling on Friday, ensuring that Texas youths are unable to receive hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and sex-change surgeries.

“We conclude the Legislature made a permissible, rational policy choice to limit the types of available medical procedures for children, particularly in light of the relative nascency of both gender dysphoria and its various modes of treatment and the Legislature’s express constitutional authority to regulate the practice of medicine,” Justice Rebeca Aizpuru Huddle wrote in the court’s decision.

Justice Debra Lehrmann, the one dissenter, wrote in her opinion that the law was “cruel” and “unconstitutional” and said that such “treatment could be lifesaving.” Critics of the law claimed that the move to limit minors’ access to transgender care was “devastating.”

“Our government shouldn’t deprive trans youth of the health care that they need to survive and thrive,” Ash Hall, LGBTQIA+ policy advocate at Texas’s American Civil Liberties Union said. “Texas politicians’ obsession with attacking trans kids and their families is needlessly cruel.”

Texas’s ACLU also said that the ruling “placed trans youth, their families, and the medical professionals who care for them in harm’s way.” The law prohibits children under the age of 18 from receiving what activists label “gender-affirming care.” Children who have already started treatment must now be weaned off of medications in a “medically appropriate” way.

The state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton, who this month sued the Biden administration over a federal rule that would require states to subsidize transgender healthcare, praised the court’s decision.

“Today, the Texas Supreme Court upheld SB 14, a law protecting children from dangerous gender confusion procedures by prohibiting puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and mutilative surgeries on minors,” Paxton said on X. “We will always defend children in Texas from these irreversible procedures. My office will use every tool at our disposal to ensure that doctors and medical institutions follow the law.”

Republican Texas governor Greg Abbott signed the bill, which prevents minors from sterilization surgery, into law last year.

“We are the Legislature — our job is to protect people,” state Sen. Bob Hall (R.) said at the time. “We protect children against lots of things. We don’t let them smoke. We don’t let them drink. We don’t let them buy lottery cards. . . . And so we are doing the right thing.”

A suspect armed with a crossbow was shot dead outside the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia after he fired a bolt at a police officer, striking the officer in the neck, according to Serbian officials.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs identified the incident as an “attempted terrorist attack,” the Associated Press reported. The embassy was closed at the time of the assault and no embassy employees were injured, the spokesman added.

After the assailant fired a bolt at the officer, the officer then “used a weapon in self-defense to shoot the attacker, who died as a result of his injuries,” according to Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic.

The officer was transported to a local hospital where he will undergo surgery to have the bolt removed from his neck, Dacic said.

While Serbian officials are “still talking about possible motives,” Dacic said, “There are now all indications that the motives relate to terrorism. Because there is no other motive why someone would attack a gendarme outside the Israeli Embassy.”

While police arrested one person near the scene of the shooting, officials are investigating a possible network and ties with foreign terrorist groups and the identity of the attack remained unknown.

“There are indications that those are individuals already known to the security services … the Wahhabi movement,” Dacic said. “But this still has not been confirmed.”

The snap presidential election in Iran is heading into a run-off next week after reformist-backed Masoud Pezeshkian and hardliner Saeed Jalili emerged at the top but failed to secure a majority in a vote with a record-low turnout.

Only 40 percent of more than 61 million eligible Iranians voted, the Ministry of Interior said on Saturday, a new low in presidential elections since the country’s 1979 revolution.

The final numbers from election headquarters at the ministry showed that the moderate Pezeshkian received more than 10.41 million votes from a total of more than 24.5 million ballots counted, trailed by former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili with 9.47 million votes.

This is only the second time since the 1979 revolution that a presidential election has gone to a second round.

Conservative Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, with 3.38 million votes, and conservative Islamic leader Mostafa Pourmohammadi, with 206,397 votes, were knocked out of the race. Two other candidates, Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani and government official Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi, dropped out.

Ghalibaf, Zakani and Ghazizadeh called on their supporters to vote for Jalili in the run-off next Friday in order to ensure victory for the “revolution front”.

The snap election on Friday came within the 50-day constitutionally mandated period to select a new president after Ebrahim Raisi and seven others, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, died in a helicopter crash on May 19.

Like all major elections in the past four years, the vote on Friday saw a low turnout, but the final number was much lower than the 45-53 percent suggested by polls.

The lowest presidential turnout in the more than four-decade history of the Islamic republic was the one that got Raisi into office, with 48.8 percent. At just below 41 percent, the parliamentary election in March and May previously had the lowest turnout of any major polls since Iran’s 1979 revolution.

The voter apathy comes as many are disillusioned in the aftermath of deadly nationwide protests in 2022-23, and as the economy continues to deal with myriad challenges including more than 40 percent inflation due to mismanagement and United States sanctions.

Hamid Reza Gholamzadeh, an Iranian foreign policy expert, attributed the low turnout to what he said was the reformist camp’s failure to activate the sector of the electorate which usually votes for it and drives participation up.

Despite the endorsement of heavyweight reformists such as former President Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, Pezeshkian “failed to awaken that part of the society which is usually when we have a turnout above 50 percent – that usually comes from the reformist side”, Gholamzadeh told Al Jazeera.

“And I would interpret that as people saying they want change,” Gholamzadeh added.

A higher turnout appears likely when Iranians vote in the July 5 run-off since it would present a clearer choice between two opposing camps. That would mostly benefit Pezeshkian, who would need more votes to defeat the combined forces of the conservative and hardliner camps.

Pezeshkian, a prominent politician and former health minister, is backed by former centrist and reformist presidents and other top figures. He has promised to lift sanctions by restoring the country’s comatose 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and to bridge the widening gap between the people and the establishment.

Jalili, a senior member of the Supreme National Security Council, has promised to bring inflation down to single digits and boost economic growth to a whopping 8 percent, along with fighting corruption and mismanagement. He advocates a harsher stance against the West and its allies.

Pezeshkian was the only moderate of six people approved to run by the Guardian Council, the constitutional body that vets all candidates.

His backers have presented him not as a miracle worker, but as a prospective president who could make things slightly better while claiming a victory for Jalili would signal a major backslide.

Jalili’s name is tied with years-long nuclear negotiations in the late 2000s and early 2010s that ultimately led to Iran’s isolation on the global stage and the imposition of United Nations Security Council sanctions.

The hardline politician, who has been trying to become president for more than a decade, blames the camp backing Pezeshkian for compromising the country’s nuclear programme as part of the landmark accord signed in 2015, which then US President Donald Trump reneged on in 2018.

Accusing his opponent of inefficiency, Jalili and other conservatives have claimed a Pezeshkian victory would only mark a third administration of former centrist President Hassan Rouhani.

Two security forces were killed in an attack targeting their vehicle that was carrying ballot boxes in southern Sistan-Baluchestan province after voting concluded. According to state media, armed attackers targeted the car that was returning the boxes to the local governor.

The New York Times editorial board called on President Biden to step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential race Friday, one day after his abysmal performance in a debate against Donald Trump.

While insisting that Biden, 81, had been an “admirable president,” the liberal Grey Lady concluded the incumbent appeared on the debate stage as “the shadow of a great public servant” and would be engaging in a “reckless gamble” by continuing his candidacy.

“There is no reason for the party to risk the stability and security of the country by forcing voters to choose between Mr. Trump’s deficiencies and those of Mr. Biden,” the board wrote. “It’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr. Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes.”

“Mr. Biden answered an urgent question on Thursday night. It was not the answer that he and his supporters were hoping for,” the Times concluded. “But if the risk of a second Trump term is as great as he says it is — and we agree with him that the danger is enormous — then his dedication to this country leaves him and his party only one choice.”

The editorial was published two hours after Biden arrived in New York City for the first of a two-day fundraising swing, which will include a high-dollar event in the Hamptons on Saturday.

It followed a day of chaos and confusion among Democrats after Biden repeatedly froze, misspoke and lost his train of thought during the first of two scheduled debates against his predecessor in Atlanta.

At one point, Biden gazed down at his lectern for nearly 10 whole seconds before popping up again to say that he “finally beat Medicare.”

The Times editorial board noted that Biden had “challenged Mr. Trump to this verbal duel. He set the rules, and he insisted on a date months earlier than any previous general election debate. He understood that he needed to address longstanding public concerns about his mental acuity and that he needed to do so as soon as possible.”The truth Mr. Biden needs to confront now is that he failed his own test.”

Even before the Times editorial board weighed in, two of the paper’s most prominent columnists had called on Biden to step aside. “The Democratic Party has some prominent figures who I think would be in a good position to defeat Trump in November,” Nicholas Kristoff wrote late Thursday following the debate. “This will be a wrenching choice.”

“But, Mr. President, one way you can serve your country in 2024 is by announcing your retirement and calling on delegates to replace you,” he said, “for that is the safest course for our nation.”

Thomas Friedman, who called Biden “my friend” said that watching the debate “made me weep” and acknowledged that “Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election.”

Two workers were allegedly shot and killed by an illegal migrant at a Texas Chick-fil-A on Wednesday — in the latest disturbing incident believed to have been committed by an asylum seeker.

Oved Bernardo Mendoza Argueta, a 37-year-old native of El Salvador, was arrested and charged with capital murder after he opened fire in the fast-food joint in Irving around 3:40 p.m., according to police.

Two people, one identified as Patricia Portillo, died at the scene from gunshot wounds. The other victim’s identity is being withheld pending family notification, a police spokesperson told The Post.

He fled the scene in a silver 1997 Honda sedan but was tracked down and taken into custody around 2:50 a.m. Thursday morning.

Irving police confirmed he had an “ICE hold.”

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson told The Post that the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in Dallas “lodged an immigration detainer with the Irving Police Department on Mendoza.”

ICE issues such holds for noncitizens who have been apprehended by local or state police to indicate ICE intends to take them into custody, according to the agency.

It’s not immediately clear where and when Mendoza entered the US.

“Our hearts are broken by the tragedy that unfolded inside our restaurant Wednesday. We will miss our two Team Members dearly,” Chick-fil-A said in a statement. “Right now, our focus is on providing care for our Team and the victims’ families.

“I want to thank the Irving Police Department for their professionalism and compassion. We will continue working closely with them as they conduct their investigation.”

The double homicide comes just days after 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was allegedly brutalized and murdered by two illegal migrants from Venezuela in Houston.

Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, and Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, allegedly lured Jocelyn under a bridge, stripped her naked to the waist and assaulted her for two hours, according to court documents.

The men, who had been in the US only a few months, tied her hands behind her back during the assault, then strangled her and dumped her body in a bayou, prosecutors said. Both have been charged with capital murder.

Earlier this month, a 13-year-old girl was raped in a New York City park in broad daylight by an illegal migrant from Ecuador.

Christian Geovanny Inga-Landi, 25, held a girl and boy, both 13, at knifepoint in a secluded section of Kissena Park had their hands tied with shoelaces, police said.

The fiend raped the girl — and filmed it — before running off with the kids’ phones, cops said.

A flood of tips from local community members and good Samaritans who dramatically subdued the suspect led to his arrest days later.

Four people were killed and 10 others seriously injured when a driver plowed into a Long Island nail salon Friday, police and law enforcement sources said.

The minivan smashed through the Hawaii Nail & Spa storefront at 794 Grand Boulevard in Deer Park just after 4:30 p.m. — trapping customers and employees inside, according to cops and a report.

The vehicle came to rest towards the back of the salon, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, photos show.

The entire glass storefront had been shattered and the ceiling was ripped down in the crash.

“There were people trapped and we extricated them and transported everyone to area hospitals,” Deer Park Third Assistant Chief Dominic Albanese told Newsday. “They were trapped inside. Everybody was inside the salon.”

“It’s horrible. It’s horrible. It can be tough for the community and tougher for the volunteer fire department, but you know we’re going to get through it,” Albanese added.

The nail salon is located in a strip mall on Grand Boulevard near Commack Road that includes a liquor store and a tattoo parlor.

More than 150 firefighters and EMS workers responded to what the Deer Park Fire Department called a “mass casualty event.”

Four people were pronounced dead at the scene, fire officials said. They were all believed to be inside the salon.

Ten others were taken to area hospitals for serious injuries, including one who was airlifted to the hospital, according to fire officials.

The driver of the van is believed to be one of the survivors.

Records show that the van had never received a traffic violation.

The cause of the crash are still under investigation.

Obama

Former President Barack Obama on Friday rushed to President Joe Biden’s rescue following a lackluster debate performance, one that sent many Democrats into a spiral of panic, the former president asserting that “bad debate nights happen.”

“Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know,” Obama said in a statement shared to social media, urging Americans to look beyond Biden’s dismal debate performance.

“But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself,” Obama claimed.

“Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight — and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit,” Obama said, concluding that “Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November.”

He then shared a link to Biden’s campaign website:

Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the…

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 28, 2024

Obama’s plea for Americans to look beyond Biden’s debate performance follows hours upon hours of panic from Democrats after Biden’s debate performance, which featured the 81-year-old looking confused at times, suffering freezes, and attempting to resurrect Democrat talking points — from the “very fine people” hoax to the “suckers and losers” fabrication. When he was not doing that, he repeated the phrase “the idea” 27 times.

Obama’s statement also comes after the former president made waves for leading Biden off the stage at a star-studded fundraiser in June:

Biden freezes before Obama grabs his arm and leads him off stage. Yikes! 😳 pic.twitter.com/nCgAGitoQ6

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 16, 2024

Clinton

Former President Bill Clinton defended President Joe Biden after his performance at the presidential debate on Thursday night against former President Donald Trump.

In a post on X, Clinton highlighted how Biden had “given us 3 years of solid leadership,” and created a “record number of new jobs,” and was “making real progress solving the climate crisis,” among other things.

“I’ll leave the debate rating to the pundits, but here’s what I know: fact and history matter,” Clinton wrote. “Joe Biden has given us 3 years of solid leadership, steadying us after the pandemic, creating a record number of new jobs, making real progress solving the climate crisis, and launching a successful effort in reducing inflation, all while pulling us out of the quagmire Donald Trump left us in. That’s what’s really at stake in November.”

I’ll leave the debate rating to the pundits, but here’s what I know: facts and history matter. Joe Biden has given us 3 years of solid leadership, steadying us after the pandemic, creating a record number of new jobs, making real progress solving the climate crisis, and launching…

— Bill Clinton (@BillClinton) June 28, 2024

Immediately after the debate, the CNN panel went into panic mode over Biden’s debate performance:

“Anderson, this was a game-changing debate in the sense that right now as we speak, there is a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party,” CNN host John King said after the debate:

It started minutes into the debate and it continues right now. It involves party strategists; it involves elected officials; it involves fundraisers. And they’re having conversations about the president’s performance, which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket. And they’re having conversations about what they should do about it.

CNN political commentator Van Jones also admitted, “That was painful. I love Joe Biden. I worked for Joe Biden. He didn’t do well at all. He did not do well at all.”

Despite some floating the idea of replacing Biden and donors backing down, a Biden campaign spokesperson said Biden is not dropping out. He reportedly plans to participate in a second debate in September.

Meanwhile, Republicans are also casting doubt on the possibility of Democrats replacing Biden.

“The Democrats don’t have the option of replacing Joe Biden,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told Breitbart News Daily after the debate.

“There’s not a vehicle for them to do that. Their rules are very onerous for their convention and their structure, and Jason Miller did a good job of weighing that out last night. And what we know is that it is going to be their ticket is set,” the senator said. “So it is going to be a Biden-Harris ticket.”

Republican National Committee (RNC) chair Michael Whatley tends to agree, telling Breitbart News Daily, “Those delegates that have voted for him in all of the primaries — and we have completely finished the primary process across the country — are bound to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”

“All of the money that they have raised, the hundreds of millions of dollars that they’ve raised, was raised for the Biden-Harris campaign. So it is absolutely not a given that they’re going to be able to switch this out, and they certainly are not going to do it if Jill Biden doesn’t allow Joe Biden to step down,” Whatley added.

TIME magazine has debuted a devastatingly simple cover for its next issue, the day after President Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in his first debate with Donald Trump in the lead-up to November’s election.

President Biden appeared to flounder in the 90-minute televised debate, frequently mumbling, trailing off his sentences and getting mocked by former president Trump for his at-times unintelligible statements.

Many political commentators described the mood inside the Democratic Party after the debate using one word: “Panic.”
That’s the word TIME Magazine has opted for too, alongside a photo of Mr Biden seemingly wandering off the side of the cover:

Mr Biden is 81, three years older than Mr Trump, and will turn 82 on November 20, two weeks after the presidential election.

Concerns about Mr Biden’s cognitive decline were exacerbated by the debate, which saw the President appear to freeze during one early question about national debt.

“(We’re) making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person … er, eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the … uh … with the Covid. Excuse me, with, dealing with everything we had to do with … uh … look”.

After a brief pause, he then said “we finally beat Medicare” as his final comment before the moderators moved on.

Speculation Mr Biden might step aside and allow another Democratic candidate to step up so far appears incorrect. He intends to see the campaign through to election day, and will front up for a second debate against Mr Trump in September, according to CNN senior White House correspondent Kayla Tausche.

“I know I’m not a young man. I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t talk as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Mr Biden told the crowd at a North Carolina rally the day after the debate.

“Well, I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. I know, like millions of Americans, when you get knocked down, you get back up.”

Mr Trump, meanwhile, was gloating at his own campaign rally, telling his supporters in Virginia that Mr Biden was “grossly incompetent” and a “trainwreck”.

Many shared Trump’s sentiments.

“This was a disaster for Biden. Many Democrats are looking for a new candidate after this debate,” Doug Muzzio, a retired public affairs professor at Baruch College, told The Post.

“Biden was tentative, rambling and sometimes incoherent,” he said.

“Trump, on the other hand, was clear and relatively coherent. He looked like he knew what he was talking about. Even though he repeatedly lied, he lies in an articulate way.”

According to a CNN flash poll, taken straight after the debate, 67 per cent of registered voters said Mr Trump had won the debate. Prior to the debate, 55 per cent of the voters had expected Mr Trump to prevail.

Tractor Supply is getting rid of several initiatives that some social media users and customers have slammed as “woke” in recent weeks.

The farming supplies retailer, which is headquartered in Tennessee, on Thursday said it “will ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business” moving forward.

Tractor Supply said it will cease sponsorship of “nonbusiness activities” such as Pride festivals and voting campaigns, with intentions to focus more on “rural America priorities.”

Agricultural education, veterans and animal welfare were among the causes it identified.

The company said it will drop diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) goals it had previously set for itself. DEI positions at Tractor Supply will also get axed, according to the company. It will also cease sending data to the Human Rights Campaign, an LBGTQ advocacy group.

Additionally, the farming supplies retailer plans to prioritize land and water conservation initiatives, scuttling aims of curbing carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and reaching net-zero by the decade after that.

“We work hard to live up to our mission and values every day and represent the values of the communities and customers we serve,” Tractor Supply said in its statement. “We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart.”

Some pages on Tractor Supply’s website related to its carbon emissions reduction and DEI efforts also redirected Friday to a photo of a Tractor Supply store.

Tractor Supply has been receiving heat from political activist Robby Starbuck and others about “woke” initiatives in place at the company. He urged Tractor Supply customers earlier in the month to spend their money elsewhere “until Tractor Supply makes REAL changes.”

Shares of Tractor Supply have fallen about 3% in the past month. Since Friday’s opening bell, the stock price has gone up over 2%.

The company last reported quarterly financial results in late April.

At the time, Tractor Supply forecast it would bring in $14.7 billion to $15.1 billion in net sales for the fiscal year. Annual net income was expected to be in the $1.06 billion to $1.13 billion range.

Martin Mull, who was known for TV shows like “Arrested Development” and “Roseanne” as well as movies like 1985’s “Clue” and 1983’s “Mr. Mom,” has died.

He was 80 years old.

Mull’s daughter said the comic and actor died at home on Thursday after “a valiant fight against a long illness.”

Mull, who was also a guitarist and painter, came to national fame with a recurring role in the Norman Lear-created satirical soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” and the starring role in its spinoff, “Fernwood Tonight,” on which he played Barth Gimble, the host of a satirical talk show.

“He was known for excelling at every creative discipline imaginable and also for doing Red Roof Inn commercials,” his daughter, Maggie Mull, a TV writer, said in an Instagram post.

“He would find that joke funny. He was never not funny. My dad will be deeply missed by his wife and daughter, by his friends and coworkers, by fellow artists and comedians and musicians, and—the sign of a truly exceptional person—by many, many dogs.”

“Simpsons” actor Harry Shearer wrote on his social media: “Took me a moment to grasp that Martin Mull has passed. During the late 70s, we worked together on Fernwood Tonight & its successor series. We wrote together, often at the beach (!), and sometimes I’d come out and riff with him. Mucho laffs! Always a treat to be with. RIP MM.”

Before his TV and movie success, Mull performed his music and comedy in Hollywood clubs in the 1970s.

He told The Associated Press in 1980: “In 1976 I was a guitar player and sit-down comic appearing at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip when Norman Lear walked in and heard me. He cast me as the wife beater on ‘Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.’ Four months later, I was spun off on my own show.”

The Justice Department has criminally charged 193 people, including 76 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, with participating in health care fraud schemes worth $2.75 billion, the agency said Thursday.

The two-week operation ensnared defendants accused of illegally distributing millions of pills of the stimulant Adderall.

It also included $176 million in fraudulent schemes involving drug and alcohol abuse treatment, including one defendant accused of billing the federal Medicaid program for treatment that was either inadequate or nonexistent, Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

The bust also targeted schemes involving telemedicine, charging 36 defendants accused of collectively submitting over $1.1 billion in false claims to the Medicare program.

“The Justice Department will bring to justice criminals who defraud Americans, steal from taxpayer-funded programs, and put people in danger for the sake of profits,” Garland said during a press conference.

The government seized more than $231 million in cash, luxury vehicles, gold and other assets in the law enforcement action that spanned 32 federal districts.

In one scheme, federal prosecutors charged seven people associated with the San Francisco-based telehealth startup Done Global with illegally distributing Adderall, a stimulant used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, commonly known as ADHD.

One nurse practitioner at the company was accused of prescribing 1.5 million pills of Adderall while having little interaction with patients. The company’s founder and top doctor were charged earlier this month.

US officials said fraud schemes may have played a role in well-publicized shortages of Adderall in recent years.

The investigations were led by the Justice Department’s criminal fraud unit and involved the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration.

Officials said they have increasingly relied on data analytics to spot fraud schemes that either put patients at risk or cost the US government.

The Supreme Court on Friday threw out the charges against a former Pennsylvania police officer who entered the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks. By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the law that Joseph Fischer was charged with violating, which bars obstruction of an official proceeding, applies only to evidence tampering, such as destruction of records or documents, in official proceedings.

Friday’s ruling could affect charges against more than 300 other Jan. 6 defendants. The same law is also at the center of two of the four charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith against former President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on April 25 on Trump’s claims of immunity and has not yet issued its decision in that case. But Smith has argued that even if the court were to rule for Fischer, the charges against Trump could still go forward because they rested, in part, on efforts to use false electoral certificates at the joint session of Congress.

The law at the center of Fischer’s case is 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), which makes it a crime to “otherwise obstruct[], influence[], or impede[] any official proceeding.” U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols concluded that because the previous subsection, Section 1512(c)(1), bars tampering with evidence “with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding,” Section 1512(c)(2) only applies to cases involving evidence tampering that obstructs an official proceeding, and he dismissed the obstruction charge against Fischer.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed Nichols’ ruling, concluding that the “meaning of the statute is unambiguous,” so that it “applies to all forms of corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding, other than the conduct that is already covered by” the prior subsection.

On Friday, the Supreme Court vacated the D.C. Circuit’s decision, interpreting the law more narrowly to apply only to evidence tampering.

Roberts explained that the general principles used to construe statutes instruct courts that “a general phrase can be given a more focused meaning by the terms linked to it.” Here, he continued, subsection (c)(1) provides several specific examples of evidence tampering that the law prohibits – such as altering a record and concealing a document. When subsection (c)(2) immediately follows those examples, he reasoned, “the most sensible inference” is that the scope of (c)(2) is limited by the examples in (c)(1). Indeed, he noted, if subsection (c)(2) sweeps as broadly as the government posits, “there would have been scant reason for Congress to provide any specific examples at all” in subsection (c)(1).

Roberts also pointed to the provision’s history as additional support for the majority’s interpretation. Until the Enron scandal, the statute only made it a crime to use intimidation or physical force, or “corruptly persuade,” someone else to shred documents. The statute did not, Roberts noted, create liability for the person who actually shredded the documents – leading Congress to enact Section 1512(c) to “plug this loophole.”

“It would be peculiar to conclude that in closing the Enron gap, Congress actually hid away in the second part of the third subsection of Section 1512 a catchall provision that reaches far beyond the document shredding and similar scenarios that prompted the legislation in the first place.”

The government’s expansive construction of subsection (c)(2) would have other effects as well, he suggested. It “would criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists alike to decades in prison.”

When the case returns to the D.C. Circuit, Roberts instructed, that court can reconsider the obstruction charge against Fischer “in light of our interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2).”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the Roberts opinion but also filed a concurring opinion in which she emphasized that despite “the shocking circumstances involved in this case or the Government’s determination that they warrant prosecution, today, this Court’s task is to determine what conduct is proscribed by the criminal statute that has been invoked as the basis for the obstruction charge at issue here.”

Jackson suggested that it “beggars belief that Congress would have inserted a breathtakingly broad, first-of-its kind criminal obstruction statute (accompanied by a substantial 20-year maximum penalty) in the midst of a significantly more granular series of obstruction prohibitions without clarifying its intent to do so.”

Jackson also made clear that, at least in her view, the charges against Fischer could still go forward. He was charged, she stressed, with “corruptly obstructing a proceeding before Congress, specifically, Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote,” which used records and documents. If, Jackson posited, the conduct at the center of the charges against Fischer “involved the impairment (or the attempted impairment) of the availability or integrity of things used during the January 6 proceeding,” then the charges against him can go forward.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented, in an opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Although “events like January 6th” may not have been the target of subsection (c)(2), she acknowledged (noting in a parenthetical, “Who could blame Congress for that failure of imagination?”), she argued that the court should “stick to the text” when statutes “go further than the problem that inspired them.” Instead, she contended, the court “does textual backflips to find some way — any way — to narrow the reach of subsection (c)(2).”

For Barrett, the text of subsection (c)(2) clearly supports the government’s broader interpretation. Subsection (c)(2), she asserted, “covers all sorts of actions that affect or interfere with official proceedings,” and the word “otherwise” does not limit its scope.

Barrett also rejected the majority’s contention that the government’s interpretation could lead to lengthy criminal sentences against activists and lobbyists. First, she noted, a defendant can only be convicted under subsection (c)(2) if the government can show that he acted “corruptly.” Second, she added, although the law calls for a maximum sentence of 20 years, it does not specify a minimum sentence – suggesting that Congress believed that conduct covered by the law “may run the gamut from major to minor.”

In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland indicated that he was “disappointed” by the ruling, but he stressed that “the vast majority of the more than 1,400 defendants charged for their illegal actions on January 6 will not be affected by this decision. There are no cases,” Garland said, “in which the Department charged a January 6 defendant only with the offense at issue in Fischer.”

President Joe Biden attempted to calm the panic about the viability of his candidacy in the hours after his disastrous debate performance, telling supporters at a campaign rally on Friday that despite not being as young as he used to, “I know how to tell the truth.”

“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” he said, to a crowd of people cheering. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.”

“I would not be running again if I did not believe with all my heart and soul that I can do this job,” he continued.

But the rally may not be enough to quiet an already widespread panic in the Democratic Party over Biden’s debate performance against Trump. Biden’s raspy voice, trailing answers and deflated stage presence during the 90-minute debate brought into the open what was once a taboo topic: replacing him on the top of the ticket. His comments at the Friday rally were an early indication of how his campaign plans to do damage control.

In front of a crowd of a few hundred supporters on Friday afternoon, Biden was far more energized and fired up than on the debate stage.

As supporters generously cheered on the president, waving “Let’s Go Joe” campaign signs, Biden, reading prepared remarks, lobbed sharp attacks at Trump for his criminal convictions and his position on abortion.

He emphasized that the former president was not honest in the debate. And he shouted through much of the speech, at times breaking to cough.

“He set a new record for the most lies told in a debate,” Biden said. “He lied about how he had nothing to do with the insurrection on January 6.”

The lineup of speakers who took the podium before Biden didn’t address the president’s rocky debate performance. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper zeroed in on attacking Trump, while First Lady Jill Biden said his performance on the stage was “Joe Biden — a president with integrity and character who told the truth,” while Trump told “lie after lie.” A North Carolina father, Eric Fitts — whose family went viral a few months ago on Tiktok after eating Cookout with Biden in their Raleigh home — told the crowd that he watched Biden with “pride” Thursday night.

Polls have consistently shown that voters — including his own supporters — think Biden is too old to effectively serve a second term.

The Biden campaign had hoped that the debate would be an opportunity to prove to the public that the president was capable of serving another four years. But his performance had the opposite effect, all but ensuring that concerns about the 81-year-old’s fitness for office will only intensify.

Biden aides often scoff at suggestions that he is not up for the job, insisting that he is as sharp as ever behind closed doors. At the same time, they have been reluctant to put him in more public settings where he could demonstrate that sharpness. Biden has participated in far fewer traditional media interviews and press conferences compared to his predecessors.

But the intense panic within the party following his debate performance raised questions about what he would do to more aggressively address the age issue over the next few months of the campaign.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon must report to prison by Monday after the Supreme Court rejected his last-minute bid to stave off his four-month sentence for defying subpoenas from the House Jan. 6 committee.

Bannon was convicted in Washington on two counts of contempt of Congress nearly two full years ago, in July 2022, and sentenced to four months in prison in October 2022.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols had put his sentence on hold as he pursued an appeal of his conviction, which was rejected in May.

Nichols then ordered Bannon to report to prison by July 1, saying there was no basis to continue to delay the sentence.

An appeals court then rejected Bannon’s appeal of the decision, leaving only the Supreme Court to help him avoid incarceration.

Bannon was held in contempt of Congress after he blew off the Jan. 6 committee’s request for documents and testimony as part of its investigation into former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and remain in power in the lead-up to the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.

Bannon’s lawyer told the Supreme Court that he was relying upon the advice of counsel, saying he was waiting for issues of executive privilege to be settled.

But as federal prosecutors noted in their 2022 sentencing memo, there was no operational claim of executive privilege, as Bannon had been a part of the Trump administration years earlier, not during the time frame being examined by the Jan. 6 committee.

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, who was sentenced to four months in federal prison on the same charges, is finishing up his sentence after he reported to prison in March.

Bannon, who is 70, has already been assigned an inmate number by the federal Bureau of Prisons: 05635-509.

Rhonda Massie, the wife of Rep. Thomas Massie, R-KY, has died, the congressman announced Friday morning.

“Yesterday my high school sweetheart, the love of my life for over 35 years, the loving mother of our 4 children, the smartest kindest woman I ever knew, my beautiful and wise queen forever, Rhonda went to Heaven,” Massie wrote on social media.

“Thank you for your prayers for our family in this difficult time.”

No information regarding the nature of her passing was shared by Massie or his staff in the immediate aftermath.

Thomas Massie, a maverick known for his contrarian brand of Republicanism, has served as congressman to Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District since 2012. The district is largely comprised of the state’s Northern Kentucky region.

A Vanceburg native, the congressman met Rhonda Massie when they both attended Lewis County High School.

“She was valedictorian at our high school where we went to the Prom together, accepted at MIT and Harvard, earned a Mechanical Engineering degree from MIT, and devoted her life to our family,” Massie wrote.

Fellow politicians sent their condolences after Massie shared the news.

“Rhonda Massie was a delightful person. Please join me in praying for Congressman Massie and his family,” Secretary of State Michael Adams said in a post in response to the news Massie shared.

Four years ago this month, the wife of Rep. Andy Barr passed away from a rare heart condition called mitral valve prolapse. Eleanor Carol Leavell Barr was 39 years old.

Barr expressed his condolences to Massie in a social media post.

“I am deeply saddened by the passing of Rhonda Massie, the beloved wife of my friend and colleague, Thomas Massie. Rhonda’s warmth, kindness and dedication to her family and community touched everyone who had the privilege of knowing her,” Barr wrote.

Former Congressman Rep. Ron Paul, the father of Rand Paul, also sent prayers.

“It’s so hard to process this tragedy,” wrote Jim Pfaff, the president of The Conservative Caucus in Washington. “She was Thomas’s heart. They were best friends, fellow engineers and most of all loving spouses.

“My heart breaks for Thomas.”