Day: September 12, 2020

President Donald Trump violated Twitter rules once again on Saturday, by encouraging North Carolina voters to commit a felony offense.

In a tweet, the president urged voters in the state, which is expected to feature a number of competitive races in November, to vote twice — once by mail and once in person. Voting twice is illegal in the state of North Carolina, as it is in all states. Twitter quickly hid the tweet for violating site rules about protecting “civic and election integrity,” though it has not been taken down, having been deemed to be of public …

Political appointees have repeatedly pressured Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials to manipulate reports, in order to make them more closely align with President Donald Trump’s public statements about the pandemic, according to a new report from Politico’s Dan Diamond.

Diamond writes that “CDC officials have fought back against the most sweeping changes,” but the report finds that Trump appointees have nevertheless succeeded in politicizing public health and the response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has now killed more than 193,000 people in the US. These officials have reportedly worked to suppress reports on the ineffectiveness of …

On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that would make it easier for the state’s inmate firefighters to pursue a career in the field after their release.

The bill clears the way for inmates who serve as firefighters to have their convictions expunged upon release, according to state assemblywoman Eloise Reyes, who sponsored the bill, and to apply for most types of state licenses — including EMT certification, which is needed for most full time municipal jobs — without listing their prior convictions.

Previously, anyone convicted of a felony in California was barred from receiving an EMT …

April 1 was the official Census Day. Although you are legally obligated to participate in the census, that doesn’t mean you needed to respond on or by April 1. So if you still haven’t filled out your census, don’t worry. There’s still time.

Census Day is basically a benchmark that gives everyone a specific, universal date to tell the government what their household looks like. That’s why you might fill it out on March 15 or September 15, but you’re telling the government what your household looked like on April 1. The important thing is that you fill it out. …

The one word experts keep using to describe the gargantuan ongoing wildfires in the western United States is “unprecedented.”

California is experiencing some of the largest fires right now. The 491,000-acre August Complex Fire is now the largest blaze in state history, and statewide, a total of more than 3 million acres have gone up in smoke, a record area for a single year.

Nearby coastal states like Oregon and Washington are also seeing record blazes, some of which are encroaching on major population centers. In Oregon, more than 500,000 people, about 1 in 10 residents, have …