Day: February 18, 2019

At a North Carolina hearing Monday, investigators started laying out in detail an “unlawful,” “coordinated,” and “well-funded” plot to tamper with absentee ballots in a US House election that remains uncalled more than three months after Election Day — finally bringing some clarity to one of the most bizarre election scandals in recent memory.

State investigators established their theory of the case — that a Republican operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, directed a coordinated scheme to unlawfully collect, falsely witness, and otherwise tamper with absentee ballots — and a worker who says she assisted him in the scheme delivered explosive testimony …

President Donald Trump just issued an ultimatum to Venezuela’s military: Either join with the US-led effort to depose Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, or suffer immense consequences.

Maduro’s troops can defect and support the US-backed challenger — Juan Guaidó — “or you can choose the second path, continuing to support Maduro,” Trump said on Monday at Florida International University. “If you choose this path, you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit, and no way out. You will lose everything.”

Since January, the Trump administration, joined by governments in the Americas and Europe, has called for Venezuela’s socialist president …

On the list of people in the world who have things to worry about, the famous actors and directors nominated at this year’s Oscars make up the very last 25 of those spots. Fine, I am sure some of them have legitimate stressors in their lives, but I also hope that being nominated for the most prestigious award in their chosen field mitigates at least some of that.

But despite this, nominees for acting and directing awards will all receive products to help calm them down. This year, the Oscars gift bags will include chocolates infused with THC, CBD skin …

Teacher frustration keeps spreading.

Public school teachers in Oakland, California, said they will strike on Thursday, following 18 months of tense negotiations with district officials over pay raises and classroom sizes.

“We have had it. Enough is enough, bargaining with our school district has not worked,” said Keith Brown, a middle school teacher and president of the Oakland Education Association, during a press conference on Saturday. “Our schools have been starved of resources for years.”

If they don’t reach a deal before Thursday, about 3,000 teachers won’t show up to work in one of the state’s largest school districts, which …