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Melanie Barton-Gauss, a retired teacher from Florida, traveled to the City of Brotherly Love just weeks before the presidential election to spread her message of political conversion. "After Jan. 6, I did what in my family is considered unthinkable: I left the Republican Party and joined the Democrat[ic] Party. And I left the church."

Barton-Gauss is part of a bus tour across the key battleground state hosted by Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT). The group teamed up with The Bulwark, a political outlet founded by Never Trump Republicans, for a series of podcast tapings and other events highlighting Republicans and former Republicans supporting Vice President Kamala Harris. Targeting lifelong members of the GOP who harbor doubts about another Donald Trump term is a central strategy of the Harris campaign. RVAT's organizers believe there are just enough of these right-leaning voters to push dead-heat swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin over the top for Democrats.

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Aid to several communities impacted by Hurricane Helene was temporarily paused in parts of North Carolina over the weekend due to reports of threats against Federal Emergency Management Agency responders, amid a backdrop of misinformation about responses to recent storms.

Some FEMA operations were paused in Ashe County out of an abundance of caution Sunday, Ashe County Sheriff B. Phil Howell said on Facebook. This includes in-person applications for aid in at least two locations “due to threats occurring in some counties,” according to the county’s emergency management office. That assistance is expected to resume Monday.

“We have your location. We will share it for the highest bidder,” one wrote to her.

“I will cut your head off.”

“Where do you want me to rape you?” another message read.

More than 5,000 calls and messages bombarded Marzieh Hamidi’s phone in the days after the Afghan Taekwondo champion dared to suggest that her home country’s men’s cricket team didn’t represent her – an athlete forced into exile by the Taliban’s ban on women’s sport.

“Taekwondo gives me more identity as a woman,” she told CNN, “to feel more powerful in society.”

Hounded by death threats in Paris, where the 21-year-old refugee now lives under police protection, Hamidi has become a champion for equal rights for Afghan women. It’s a campaign waged disproportionately by the country’s female athletes.

“In Afghanistan, women are not allowed to be women,” she added. “They do not exist.”

Criminalizing marital rape would be “excessively harsh,” the Indian government has said, in a blow to campaigners ahead of a long-awaited Supreme Court decision that will affect hundreds of millions of people in India for generations.

In India, it is not considered rape if a man forces sex or sexual acts on his wife, as long as she is over 18, due to an exception in a British colonial-era law.

Most Western and common law jurisdictions have long since rectified this – Britain outlawed marital rape in 1991, for example, and it is illegal in all 50 US states.

But across the world, about 40 countries do not have legislation that addresses the issue of marital rape – and among those that do, the penalties for non-consensual sex within marriage are “significantly lower” than other rape cases, according to the United Nations Population Fund’s 2021 State of World Population review.

Then-President Donald Trump’s claims in 2018 that the FBI would have full leeway to investigate sexual assault allegations about his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, appeared to confuse the agency, according to internal communications cited in a Senate Democrat’s new report.

The investigation into the allegations – which Kavanaugh has vehemently denied – was sought after an emotional hearing with his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, prompted some crucial senators to balk at confirming the nominee.

The White House, however, instructed the FBI to only interview 10 witnesses, according to the report. The FBI was also not given authority to seek out other witnesses who might have corroborating information, nor did it have permission to go beyond the specific subject areas outlined by the White House for questioning the witnesses.

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Though it consistently ranks among the world’s safest big cities, police in the Asian financial hub say the new cameras are needed to fight crime – and have raised the possibility of equipping them with powerful facial recognition and artificial intelligence tools.

That’s sparked alarm among some experts who see it as taking Hong Kong one step closer to the pervasive surveillance systems of mainland China, warning of the technology’s repressive potential.

Hong Kong police had previously set a target of installing 2,000 new surveillance cameras this year, and potentially more than that each subsequent year. The force plans to eventually introduce facial recognition to these cameras, security chief Chris Tang told local media in July – adding that police could use AI in the future to track down suspects.

Nearly two months ago, CNN reached out to Melania Trump’s book publisher to request an interview with the former first lady ahead of her upcoming memoir. After several exchanges about a possible interview, the publisher sent an unusual demand last week: an interview would cost $250,000.

In an email to CNN, Skyhorse Publishing sent a document labeled, “Confidentiality and Nondisclosure Agreement” that laid out strict terms for an interview and use of material from the book, titled “Melania,” due to publish on October 8. On top of that, the agreement stipulated that “CNN shall pay a licensing fee of two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000).”

CNN did not sign the agreement.

Days later, after a separate CNN journalist asked Skyhorse Publishing about the exorbitant interview fee, the publisher said it had sent the payment demand by mistake.

Police in a majority-Black Mississippi city discriminate against Black people, use excessive force and retaliate against critics, the Justice Department said Thursday in a scathing report detailing findings of an investigation into civil rights abuses.

The Lexington Police Department “has created a system where officers can relentlessly violate the law” in one of the poorest counties in America, according to the Justice Department. Investigators found police also sexually harassed women and kept people behind bars for minor offenses because they couldn’t afford to pay fines.

“Today’s findings show that the Lexington Police Department abandoned its sacred position of trust in the community by routinely violating the constitutional rights of those it was sworn to protect,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

All districts are now required to promote abstinence, exclude consent, and remove any pictures of reproductive organs.

The Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) has ordered local school districts to submit their sex education plans to the state for approval. The FLDOE has also said the classes must promote abstinence and cannot include discussion of contraception or pictures of reproductive health organs.

The sex-ed takeover removes local discretion when it comes to district sex education classes and materials.

“The most important red line has been crossed already. And that was when the Russians entered Ukraine,” Mette Frederiksen says.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called Monday for Ukraine’s allies to greenlight the use of donated weapons for long-range strikes against Russia.

“My suggestion is, let us end the discussion about red lines,” Frederiksen told Bloomberg in an interview that aired Monday. Ukraine’s benefactors had made a “mistake” by engaging in handwringing over Kyiv hitting targets inside Russia, she added, as doing so had given Moscow “too good a card in their hands.”

Arms-donating countries, particularly the U.S., have set restrictions on Ukraine’s use of their weapons in long-range strikes, due to fears of being dragged further into a conflict with Russia.

The US Commerce Department on Monday will propose a ban on the sale or import of smart vehicles that use specific Chinese or Russian technology because of national security concerns, according to US officials.

A US government investigation that began in February found a range of national security risks from embedded software and hardware from China and Russia in US vehicles, including the possibility of remote sabotage by hacking and the collection of personal data on drivers, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters Sunday in a conference call.

“In extreme situations, a foreign adversary could shut down or take control of all their vehicles operating in the United States, all at the same time, causing crashes (or) blocking roads,” she said.

The Trump campaign continued to push false claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, even after a top city leader told a campaign staffer for its vice presidential nominee ahead of this month’s presidential debate the rumors were “baseless,” the city’s mayor said, confirming a Wall Street Journal report.

A staffer of vice presidential candidate JD Vance called Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck on September 9 and asked if there was any truth in rumors that Haitian immigrants were taking and eating pets in Springfield, Heck told the Journal.

“He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” Heck told the outlet. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”

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