Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to announce on Wednesday a robust $50,000 tax deduction for small business startup costs, a boost from the current $5,000, sources told media outlets. ... Read full Story
Seven GOP-led states have filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration's latest attempt at cancelling student debt, stating the plan will begin erasing loans as soon as this week if not stopped by the courts. ... Read full Story
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul on Tuesday issued a subpoena for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to testify later this month on the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan. ... Read full Story
A Michigan judge ruled Tuesday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. must stay on the state's Nov. 5 ballot, rejecting the former presidential candidate's last-minute request to remove his name from contention in the state. ... Read full Story
Former President Donald Trump waived his right to attend the arraignment of his revised Jan. 6 federal election interference case and will enter a plea of not guilty through his attorneys, according to a filing Tuesday. ... Read full Story
Trump Media and Technology Group's shares hit a new low Tuesday, dropping below $18 for the first time since it began public trading in March. ... Read full Story
The U.S. Justice Department announced terrorism charges Tuesday against six senior leaders of Hamas for their role in "planning, supporting and perpetrating the terrorist atrocities" in Israel on Oct. 7. ... Read full Story
President Joe Biden and others affirmed the success of his administration's "Investing in America" infrastructure platform during the first of several planned presentations on the topic Tuesday afternoon. ... Read full Story
A new $100 million high-performance computer system will advance research and development efforts by NOAA on a number of scientific and weather-related tasks, the federal government announced Tuesday. ... Read full Story
A man is dead, two people still missing and six others injured after a Labor Day boating excursion in Connecticut ended in tragedy, according to multiple reports. ... Read full Story
An 11-year-old boy is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of two family members inside a home in Minden, La., early Sunday morning. ... Read full Story
A federal judge in Georgia ruled that former President Donald Trump's campaign must stop using the song "Hold On, I'm Coming" after the estate of late R&B artist Isaac Hayes filed suit. ... Read full Story
James Darren, best known for a wide range of television shows and movies from Gidget to T.J. Hooker and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, died on Monday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 88. ... Read full Story
A former top-level aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was arrested on Tuesday with her husband on unspecified charges at their Long Island home after it got raided by the FBI in July. ... Read full Story
John Podesta is expected to urge Chinese leaders to make more significant commitments to greenhouse gas emissions as he starts a three-day trip to Beijing on behalf of the Biden administration on Tuesday. ... Read full Story
A suspect is in custody after four people died in a shooting on a Chicago Transit Authority train in suburban Chicago on Monday morning. ... Read full Story
Nine people were hospitalized, including six children with "very life-threatening injuries" after being ejected from an SUV on Interstate 35 in northeastern San Antonio on Sunday night, police said. ... Read full Story
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were together in Pittsburgh on Monday for a Labor Day campaign event in the Steel City in their first joint event since Harris accepted the Democratic nomination. ... Read full Story
U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Arizona captured more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition and 285 pounds of narcotics in a series of stops at the end of August. ... Read full Story
Thousands of hotel workers have gone on strike across the United States following months of failed negotiations on higher wages, fairer staffing and better workloads. ... Read full Story
“The eagerness to vilify ‘the other side’—usually on social media—complicates the less reactionary work that defines our mission.” — Jerry Brewer, The Washington Post, 11 June 2024
Did you know?
It seems reasonable to assume that the words vilify and villain come from the same source; after all, to vilify someone is—in some ways—to make them out to be a villain. Such is not the case, however. Although the origin stories of both vilify and villain involve Latin, their roots are quite different. Vilify came to English (via Middle English and Late Latin) from the Latin adjective vilis, meaning “cheap” or “vile.” Someone who has been vilified, accordingly, has had their reputation tarnished or cheapened in such a way that they’re viewed as morally reprehensible. Villain on the other hand, comes from the Medieval Latin word villanus, meaning “villager,” and ultimately from the Latin noun villa, meaning “house.” The Middle English descendent of villanus developed the meaning of “a person of uncouth mind and manners” due to the vilifying influence of the aristocracy of the time, and the connotations worsened from there until villain came to refer to (among other things), a deliberate scoundrel.