Drones Gotta Land

After trailing by more than 10,000 votes on election night, Democratic North Carolina State Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs pulled off an unexpected victory by 734 votes after absentee and provisional ballots were counted and the results were affirmed by two recounts, including a hand count completed on Tuesday. “Let this race serve as a reminder that every vote counts,” said North Carolina Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton. But the election has yet to be certified because Riggs’ GOP opponent, Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, has challenged the validity of more than 60,000 ballots, including those of Riggs’ parents. “The scale of this should be deeply troubling to anyone who has any respect for the rule of law,” Riggs told me on Wednesday.

Last week, Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Kevin Kiley (R-Calif) introduced federal anti-SLAPP legislation, in a bid to protect journalists, whistleblowers, and individual internet users from those who use lawsuits as an intimidation tactic. SLAPP suits—formally, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation—are designed to prevent people from exercising their free speech. A common example is a person suing a media outlet after unfavorable coverage—attempting to bankrupt journalists from lawyers’ fees, even if, in the end, the outlet wins the case.

By COLLEEN LONG WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and is pardoning 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes. It’s the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. The commutations announced Thursday are for people who have served out home confinement sentences for at least one year after they were released.

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Climate tipping points are a specter looming over our future—thresholds beyond which the Earth’s systems switch into new states, often abruptly and irreversibly. The long-frozen soil beneath the Arctic could rapidly thaw and release vast amounts of carbon dioxide and methane stored within it, heating up the atmosphere even more in a feedback loop.

Whatever the issue may be, Nancy Pelosi can be counted on to take the wrong position, each and every single time.

Medical care “experts” begin taunting Trump about his never offering an alternative to ObamaCare in his first term. They are incorrect.