Herschel Walker orders 1,000 fake police badges to give to supporters in tight Georgia Senate race
Republican candidate Herschel Walker is hawking fake police badges to supporters in an effort to take advantage of what pundits considered a gaffe in his tight Georgia U.S. Senate race.
Days after Walker whipped out an “honorary badge” during a high-stakes debate with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, the retired football star’s campaign ordered 1,000 plastic replica badges that it plans to use as campaign gimmicks.
Walker’s effort is to turn a widely mocked debate moment into an unlikely positive as the race heads into the home stretch.
“Herschel Walker has been a friend to law enforcement and has a record of honoring police,” said Gail Gitcho, a Walker campaign strategist, told NBC News. “If Sen. Warnock wants to highlight this, then bring it on.”
—New York Daily News
‘He’s constantly going to live in fear.’ Spared execution, Cruz faces hellish life in prison
MIAMI — Had Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz been sent to Florida’s Death Row, his daily life while awaiting execution would not have been easy. But he would have enjoyed certain comforts: his own cell, meals delivered three times a day, clean clothes and towels brought to him, and no requirement to work.
But after he’s sentenced to life in state prison next month, his existence behind bars looms as dreadful and possibly violent.
When he’s eventually assigned to live among a prison’s population, corrections experts say, Cruz will likely have a cellmate, be ordered to perform a prison job and be forced to interact with other inmates at meal times and in a recreation yard. He’ll have to navigate the alien and often-violent social hierarchy of prison life — complicated by his notoriety as a mass murderer and history of mental-health disorders.
“I have never in my career encountered anybody like him in terms of his incredible lack of social skills and his incredible lack of how to read a social situation. Those are the skills that someone needs to navigate the very difficult social world, and day-to-day life in the Florida Department of Corrections,” said Heather Holmes, a South Florida forensic psychologist who interviewed Cruz 12 times as part of her work with his defense team.
—Miami Herald
Yuba City high school football players apologize for participating in slave auction
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Three Yuba City high school football players apologized during an NAACP press conference on Monday for their involvement in a mock slave auction that ended their team’s entire season.
The filmed incident, which made news in September, depicted several River Valley High School varsity football players in a locker room acting out a mock slave auction, shouting dollar amounts as three black students were lined up in front of them.
Alex, whose parents requested his last name not be used, said he did not want to be a part of the so-called prank, but gave into peer pressure, according to a CBS Sacramento video of the press conference.
“This video is harmful to the entire Black community who counts on people like myself to stand against these wrongs rather than participating,” Alex said.
Alex was one of the four Black football players in the viral video seen in their underwear isolated on weighing scales as teammates waged bids portraying them as enslaved persons.
—The Sacramento Bee
Ukraine keeps power on despite Russia’s missile barrage
Russian missile and drone strikes targeting Ukrainian power infrastructure over the past week have failed to knock electricity supply off the grid for any prolonged period, according to International Energy Agency data.
The IEA figures show that Ukrenergo, the grid operator, has managed to keep supplying electricity to much of the country even with hundreds of Russian strikes targeting power plants and electricity substations across the nation.
Russian officials say the onslaught, which continued on Tuesday, is aimed at destroying energy infrastructure. That risks not only cutting off local heat and power as the weather turns colder, but would also pressure Europe, which has grid connections with Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a tweet that Russian attacks have destroyed 30% of Ukraine’s generating capacity and other critical infrastructure since Oct. 10. Strikes against civilian targets make any negotiations impossible, he said.
—Bloomberg News
