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Is this the end of Lucky Season 1? Or is there another episode?

When cops arrived, Colby allegedly showed "no remorse" and was vaping when officers weren't looking. But once cops faced him, he immediately began "wailing and howling," court documents showed.

Nixon led Vindman 55.2% to 44.8% with more than 80% of ballots counted when the Associated Press called the race in her favor. 

Chargers QB Justin Herbert and fiancée Madison Beer were spotted holding hands after Tuesday’s joint practice with the 49ers in El Segundo.

ICE Proposes Insurance Coverage For Local Officers Involved In Immigration Arrests

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has proposed an insurance plan to shield local police officers involved in immigration arrests from financial liability if they face allegations of misconduct during those arrests.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents walk outside the Ventura County Government Center in Ventura, California, on July 27, 2026. Blake Fagan/AFP via Getty Images

A proposal document published Aug. 14 by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shows the agency intends to pay for liability insurance coverage for state and local law enforcement officers who are trained to perform immigration officer functions.

The plan would allow officers to purchase up to $500,000 in professional liability insurance, which typically covers financial losses, legal defense fees, settlements, and judgments. Officers would be reimbursed up to $250 each year for insurance costs, according to the document.

The proposal also states that ICE intends to hire a contractor to provide outreach, training, and support to its 287(g) partners. The contractor would also be tasked with coordinating professional liability insurance coverage and reimbursement for law enforcement officers, according to the document.

The 287(g) program is a federal partnership that allows ICE to delegate authority to state and local law enforcement officers to perform specified immigration officer functions, including identifying and processing removable illegal immigrants who have criminal charges.

ICE is seeking industry feedback on the proposal by Aug. 20, according to the DHS's notice.

The proposal comes as the Trump administration has intensified its immigration enforcement efforts nationwide, with ICE playing a major role.

A notice published on Aug. 10 by DHS showed that ICE also planned to provide its agents new gloves, known as CTG-5 G.L.O.V.E, or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, which can deliver electric shocks.

A DHS spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email on Aug. 12 that ICE aims to ensure that its officers have the tools and equipment they need to safely arrest and remove "criminal illegal aliens" from the country.

"Every decision is made with careful consideration and appropriately reviewed to ensure that any technology ICE utilizes is consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards," the spokesperson said.

"Our officers are highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training."

The Democratic National Committee's Resolutions Committee on Aug. 13 approved a resolution that calls for the abolition of ICE. The resolution cited the deaths of ICE detainees and allegations of poor conditions at detention facilities.

Natalie Baldassarre, the national press secretary for the Republican National Committee, criticized the resolution, saying that Democrats should prioritize the safety of Americans. Baldassarre also said the Trump administration's enforcement efforts have mostly targeted illegal immigrants accused or convicted of crimes.

Nathan Worcester contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Tue, 08/18/2026 - 20:05

Rep. Byron Donalds cruised to victory Tuesday night over 10 other opponents in the Florida Republican gubernatorial primary. Donalds, boosted by President Trump, recorded 49% of the vote, nearly doubling up Sunshine State Lt. Gov. Jay Collins (24.7%), while and far-right former investor James Fishback (10.1%) and former state House Speaker Paul Renner (8.2%) battled...

Opponents of the $9 toll to enter midtown Manhattan said a city report concluding that congestion pricing failed to reduce air pollution in Manhattan - as backers claimed it would — proves it was just a "money grab" to fund mass transit,

The 23-year-old started his collegiate career in 2021 as a redshirt at Wake Forest and has plenty of experience after spending three seasons with Maryland.

For the first time in a long, long time, Senga has sampled a few gulps of success.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz triumphed Tuesday over a Democratic Socialists of America-backed challenger in Florida’s 25th Congressional District primary, delivering a setback to the Democratic Party’s left wing in its drive to unseat moderate incumbents. Moskowitz’s defeat of union organizer Oliver Larkin follows mixed results for progressives in this month’s contests, with Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in...

The knife-wielding nut, Juan Mercedes, 25, accused of stabbing 19-year-old tourist twice at a midtown Manhattan McDonalds around 2 a.m. Monday was arraigned on a slew of charges Tuesday — including attempted murder.

Terrell Williams, 44, has been charged with second-degree burglary, safe cracking, money laundering and other felonies.

The Mets have won with a bunch of guys nobody has heard of, reeling off 10 wins over their past 13 games entering play Tuesday. 

Following his latest fainting spell, Musiala posted a statement on social media that he was “doing well” and that he had been “grateful” for the messages of support. 

Gunshots were heard around 1 p.m. at a local Starbucks.

“I wish my family could afford to buy me a million-dollar home."

Fauci Aide Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy That Shielded EcoHealth Records, Countered Lab-Leak Narrative

Dr. David Morens, the longtime senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, pleaded guilty in Greenbelt federal court on Tuesday to conspiracy to commit offenses and to defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. § 371). The plea caps a records scandal that began with his own emails bragging about making federal documents disappear.

According to the DOJ: After the NIH terminated the bat coronavirus grant, Morens and a co-conspirator pledged to help its recipient restore the canceled funding and "counter the narrative that COVID-19 leaked from a lab."

The 78-year-old from Chester, Maryland, took the deal in exchange for prosecutors dropping the remaining charges in a five-count April indictment. Those dropped charges included destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; concealment, removal, or mutilation of records; and aiding and abetting - counts that carried up to 20 years apiece at the maximum end. "By pleading guilty today, Dr. Morens has taken responsibility for what he did and will continue to do so," his attorney, Tim Belevetz, said.

Morens faces up to five years in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis is overseeing the case, with sentencing set for Nov. 12 at the federal court in Maryland. A supplement to the plea agreement - the kind that typically covers cooperation - was filed under seal.

The Anatomy of the Conspiracy

According to the plea agreement and accompanying stipulation of facts, the conspiracy ran from roughly April 2020 through at least June 2023, and it began the moment the NIH pulled the plug on a grant titled "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence."

That grant had been awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, the New York-based nonprofit that subawarded U.S. taxpayer funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The NIH terminated it in 2020, in the Justice Department's words, "based on allegations that COVID-19 emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

What followed, per the plea, was not improvisation. Morens and his co-conspirators "agreed in writing to intentionally hide their communications from public view" by routing government business through Morens's personal Gmail account instead of his official NIH email - in explicit anticipation that those communications would be sought under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Through that channel flowed non-public NIH information, strategy on restoring the canceled funding, edits to draft letters addressed to NIH leadership on EcoHealth's behalf, and "back-channel" material passed to a figure the filings call Senior NIAID Official 1 - who, according to CBS's reading of the court documents, appears to be Fauci himself. Every one of those matters, the government notes, fell squarely within Morens's official duties and constituted federal records required to be created and maintained on government systems.

Illegal Gratuities and "Behind-the-Scenes Shenanigans"

Morens also admitted to discussing illegal gratuities with "Co-Conspirator 1," widely understood to be associated with EcoHealth Alliance leadership. In June 2020, that co-conspirator shipped two bottles of wine to Morens's Maryland home as thanks for his "behind-the-scenes shenanigans."

Per the DOJ, Morens then allegedly identified an official act he could perform to "deserve" the gift: authoring a scientific commentary in a prominent medical journal advocating that COVID-19 had natural origins. The co-conspirator floated further compensation, including meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, New York, and Washington, D.C.

"Secret Back Channels": The Email Trail

None of this scheme had to be inferred. Morens wrote it down repeatedly in emails pried loose by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic - the congressional investigation that preceded the criminal case.

"As you know, I try to always communicate on gmail because my NIH email is FOIA'd constantly," he told correspondents in one message, adding in another that they shouldn't worry because he would "delete anything I don't want to see in the New York Times."

In February 2021, he detailed the mechanics:

"I learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia'd but before the search starts, so I think we are all safe. Plus I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to Gmail."

By June 2021, he was telling colleagues, "I have retained very few emails or documents on these matters," and requesting that anything sensitive go to his Gmail. And in an April 2021 message, he explained how the protection extended upward:

"There is no worry about FOIAs. I can either send stuff to Tony [Fauci] on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble."

The paper trail triggered a criminal referral long before the indictment: Sen. Rand Paul urged the DOJ in May 2024 to investigate Morens and the NIH FOIA office he claimed had coached him. When the grand jury indicted Morens this past April, then-Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called the conduct "a profound abuse of trust," stating that Morens and his co-conspirators "deliberately concealed information and falsified records in an effort to suppress alternative theories regarding the origins of COVID-19."

Morens served in NIAID's Office of the Director from 2006 until 2022, the year Fauci retired. As the emails surfaced in 2024, Fauci distanced himself in congressional testimony. Morens, he said, was not an adviser on institute policy or other substantive issues; he claimed to be unaware of Morens's personal email practices; and he insisted he did not use personal email for government business himself - though he acknowledged Morens's conduct violated agency policy.

The plea lands amid a widening accountability fight over COVID-19 origins and the ensuing cover-up. A Senate committee voted this month to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress for declining to answer questions about his conduct during and after the pandemic, referring him to a Justice Department that has yet to respond. Fauci's lawyers maintain he was well within his rights to invoke the Fifth Amendment - and he holds a pardon from then-President Joe Biden covering conduct from Jan. 1, 2014, through Jan. 19, 2025.

Tyler Durden Tue, 08/18/2026 - 19:40

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz won Florida’s 20th District Democratic primary Tuesday, beating indicted Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.

Jurors have already heard testimony from her psychiatrists and other medical providers who said they didn't believe she was in a psychotic state.

American also plans to add seatback screens to more than 800 narrow-body aircraft, with retrofits beginning in 2028 and wrapping up in the early 2030s.