President Donald Trump threatened in a Sunday tweet to designate the left wing anti-fascist movement known as ANTIFA a terrorist organization, despite acknowledgements from his own government officials that such a move would be unconstitutional given that the group is domestically based. And it’s becoming clear that Trump doesn’t really understand what ANTIFA even means.

ANTIFA — short for anti-fascist — comprises a broad, non-monolothic coalition of leftist activists who are most known for their visible presence at political actions across the U.S. While one official ideology can be hard to pin down, members of the group dot the left side of the political spectrum, ranging from leftists to anarcho-communists to socialists.

While not all members use violence in service of achieving their political goals, media reports often link the group to aggressive tactics like vandalization and harassment. But as white nationalism, racism and anti-semitism becoming growing domestic threats in America, members of ANTIFA say that their escalation tactics are necessary in order to draw the depravity out of the shadows and expose the hate-fueled actors currently helming those movements.

Even though the group’s stated doctrine is fighting fascism in all its forms, the right has long sought to use examples of violence and skirmishes at protests as examples of false equivalency between ANTIFA members and the often self-declared white supremacists they frequently square off against.

After protests in Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd — a 46-year-old black man who was killed by a police officer who knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes — ignited a series of pro-black, anti-police demonstration across the U.S., Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr have claimed that the protests were “hijacked” by “out-of-state actors” across America, including members of ANTIFA. In a statement published Sunday, Barr alleged that ANTIFA demonstrators had executed “their own separate, violent, and extremist agenda.”

“The violence instigated and carried out by ANTIFA and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly,” the statement read in part.

But despite Trump and Barr’s fixation with ANTIFA, longstanding research shows that the biggest domestic threat currently facing the U.S., ranking even higher than foreign aggressors like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, is white supremacy — the very ideology that ANTIFA seeks to eradicate. 

In response to Trump’s tweet announcing the terrorist designation, ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi said in a statement that the move was agenda-driven and unconstitutional.

“As this tweet demonstrates, terrorism is an inherently political label, easily abused and misused,” Shamsi said. “There is no legal authority for designating a domestic group. Any such designation would raise significant due process and First Amendment concerns.”

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Thousands of undocumented immigrants ineligible for federal stimulus money and unemployment benefits will now be able to sign up to receive aid for the first time, thanks to a first-of-its-kind $125 million relief fund that kicked off in California on Monday.

Despite the fact that, in many cases, unauthorized immigrants pay taxes on their wages through the use of individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITINs), the undocumented community has been shut out of the landmark federal relief initiatives designed to help the millions Americans struggling as coronavirus remakes the economy.

The California relief initiative, first announced by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in April, marks a collaboration between the state and nonprofit groups hoping to relieve some of the burden faced by the immigrant community, particularly as it has faced higher rates of infection and disproportionate financial impacts. And even amid a global pandemic, undocumented populations have also had to deal with ramped up operations by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in recent weeks, including surveillance operations and widespread arrests.

“Every Californian, including our undocumented neighbors and friends, should know that California is here to support them during this crisis,” Newsom said in a statement announcing the relief fund in April. “We are all in this together.”

The aid fund will work to distribute one-time payments of $500 to each eligible adult, with a cap of $1,000 per household. According to the state’s website, the fund is expected to benefit some 150,000 undocumented immigrants. California has the largest undocumented population of any state at over 2 million — a cohort that makes up about 10 percent of its workforce (there are an estimated 10.6 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.). 

Of the money pledged to help undocumented Californians, $75,000 is expected to come from the state and an additional $50,000 has been pledged by private philanthropic groups, including Emerson Collective, Blue Shield of California Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

The move was heralded by immigration activists and advocates, who have long sought to highlight the disparities in the way undocumented communities have been hit by the virus.

“This virus doesn’t discriminate — it doesn’t care about race, class, or wealth,” the National Immigration Law Center wrote in a statement on Facebook shortly after the initiative was announced. “Our response to this crisis shouldn’t either. California is leading at a time when Congress should be doing more for immigrants in #COVID19 relief efforts.”

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After a revenge porn scandal that forced California Rep. Katie Hill to resign from the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019, Republicans successfully flipped her former seat in a special election on Wednesday. With his win over Democratic state Assemblywoman Christy Smith, Republican veteran Mike Garcia becomes the first member of the GOP to wrest the seat from Democratic control since 1998. 

But Hill did not immediate address the flip, leaving many to wonder in days following how the Congresswoman, who was embattled in a revenge porn case from her past, was feeling about the Democratic loss. In a tweet, Hill said that it “really hurt to have my old seat flip back to Republican… In fact, it was pretty fucking devastating.”

However, Hill also made it evident that her resignation from office was not at her own hands. “Let’s be clear,” Hill said. “My ex gave non consensual nude pics of me to the people who wanted this seat — people who were backing Garcia when he was my opponent. They gave those pics to the press. I resigned. I take full responsibility for my mistakes, but this Republican win is no coincidence.”

Let’s be clear. My ex gave nonconsenual nude pics of me to the ppl who wanted this seat- people who were backing Garcia when he was my opponent. They gave those pics to the press. I resigned.

I take full responsibility for my mistakes, but this Republican win is no coincidence.

— Katie Hill (@KatieHill4CA) May 18, 2020

In October 2019, Hill announced her resignation from Congress amid an ethics investigation into an alleged relationship she maintained with a congressional staffer during what she described as “the final tumultuous years of my abusive marriage.” Around the same time the scandal came to light, nude photos of Hill were also leaked to two media outlets without her consent, which she attributed to her estranged husband, Kenny Heslep.

Hill, who is 32 years old, was the first openly bisexual member of Congress in California. In a statement announcing her resignation last year, Hill said that the move was “what needs to happen so that the good people who supported me will no longer be subjected to the pain inflicted by my abusive husband and the brutality of hateful political operatives who seem to happily provide a platform to a monster who is driving a smear campaign.”

Around the time they were published, Hill reported the nude photos to Capitol Police, who began an investigation. The scandal sparked debate about what legally constitutes “revenge porn” in the state of California, and prompted a national reckoning with the gender disparities women politicians so often face once they assume office.

Hill, for her part, has pledged to continue to fight and advocate for survivors of revenge porn, despite the fact that she was forced to resign from office — and has even hinted that she might be planning a return to politics sooner rather than later.

“To [Christy Smith] and [House Democrats], #CA25, my former staff & everyone who worked so hard to flip this seat, I’m so sorry,” Hill wrote on Twitter in response to Republicans gaining control of her former seat. “I know I let you down, and I reflect on my role in it all everyday. Know that I’m here, ready to work. Let’s take this seat back in Nov — #CA25 deserves it.”

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When Lauren McCluskey, a University of Utah senior and track star, first alerted campus police to the fact that someone had accessed compromising photos of her and was attempting to extort her for $1000 in 2018, she did not yet know that the man who was threatening her was the same one she had been dating for about a month — or that she’d soon be dead at his hands. But she forwarded the photos and threatening messages she’d received to campus police anyway, and now, nearly two years after her death, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that the officer who received them saved them to his personal cell phone and later flaunted the photos to male coworkers.

According to the report, one of the officers initially assigned to handle McCluskey’s complaint, Miguel Deras, once bragged to colleagues about being able to peek at the lewd photos anytime he wanted, and also showed the photos to at least one male co-worker. In the year and a half since McCluskey was killed, the Tribune has been probing the way the University of Utah handled the case, and confirmed the incident with the photos with both university officials and the officer who viewed them.

McCluskey’s death happened years prior, though, when she was blackmailed and killed by a man she was dating. Although she paid her blackmailer, McCluskey took the evidence of the correspondence to the police before she was killed. In 2018, just days after Deras showed off the photos she had sent, McCluskey was fatally shot by a man she had been seeing for about a month.

Throughout the course of the relationship, her killer, 37-year-old registered sex offender Melvin Rowland, had reportedly lied about his name, age and criminal background, and had then tried to extort McCluskey by threatening to release the compromising photos in question as revenge porn. Despite her attempts to explain to police that she was being harassed, officials declined to intervene, and after an argument around 9 pm one October night, Rowland fatally shot McCluskey in the back of a parked car shortly after she’d finished her night class.

The Tribune’s report on the mishandling of McCluskey’s photos is just the latest in a series of missteps the paper has exposed that show poor judgement by officers during the police proceedings. An independent review of the response conducted in 2018 found that police had waited nearly a week to open a formal case after McCluskey first called to report her concerns, and that there was “never an attempt by any of the officers involved to check [Rowland’s] ‘offender status.’”

That review eventually prompted McCluskey’s parents to file a $56 million civil rights case against the University of Utah alleging that an inadequate response by campus police had failed to prevent their daughter’s killing. McCluskey’s death also inspired Utah to propose legislation known as “Lauren’s Law,” which was aimed at holding gun owners accountable for any harm inflicted by their firearms, regardless of whether or not they were the one to pull the trigger.

Hours after the Tribune reported the news that an officer had shared the compromising photos McCluskey had provided, the Logan Police Department announced that it would conduct an internal investigation into Deras and his conduct. In a phone call, a representative for the Logan police told Refinery29 that the department had only learned of the possible new information from the Tribune’s report, and could not offer formal comment as it was in the initial stages of the investigation. They did, however, confirm that an investigation related to allegations against Officer Deras was underway.

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New coronavirus cases are blooming inside Texas prisons at an alarming rate. On Monday, the Texas Tribune reported that of the 1,700 of symptomatic inmates the Texas Department of Criminal Justice had tested for the highly contagious virus, more than 70 percent had tested positive — a staggeringly high number, particularly in light of the relatively low percentage of confirmed cases among those in the state’s general population who have been tested.

“People are scared to tell the officers that they’re sick because they say they’re not doing much of anything to actually help,” an inmate from Beto Prison in Texas said in a letter reported by the Tribune. “The sick people use the same showers as the healthy people which is why I choose to take a bird bath,” a prison phrase for washing out of a prison cell’s sink.

According to the TDCJ’s testing, the results account for 1% of the state’s total prison population. When compared to the 10% of Texas state-wide residents who have tested positive, this number is quite alarming. And incarcerated people are not the only ones in prisons suffering from the coronavirus pandemic either — as of April 29, four corrections officers and one chaplain had died, with more than 350 staff testing positive, according to a report from The Marshall Project.

Prisons have been hotbeds for coronavirus transmission across the United States, consistently seeing rates of infection higher than those among the non-incarcerated. The Marshall Project also reported reported that at least 14,513 incarcerated people had tested positive for the virus — a more than 50 percent increase from the week before.

For incarcerated individuals and prison system workers, close quarters and inadequate access to hygiene products has meant that prisons are effectively breeding grounds for a virus that may be able to linger on surfaces for up to three days. And despite a memo from U.S. Attorney General William Barr in April that ordered states to “immediately maximize” the release of vulnerable prisoners to home confinement, officials have, thus far, been slow to act.

In hardest-hit New York City, criminal justice reformers and advocates urged Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio to take preventative action in order to curb deaths in the crowded Rikers Island jail complex. As of May 2, there were 370 confirmed cases of coronavirus among a jail population of 3,828, the Legal Aid Society reported — an infection rate of nearly 10 percent. In Chicago’s Cook County Jail, one of the largest in the country, at least 238 inmates and 115 staff members were confirmed positive for the virus in April, and the jail acknowledged that a lack of access to test kits likely meant that the true number was much higher.

Despite TDCJ introducing policy changes during the pandemic — including a cancellation of inmate visitation, stricter unit cleanings, and two-week lockdowns for infected locations — the policies incited at a state-level are not necessarily trickling down. Prisons in Texas are still running without proper supplies, like masks and hand sanitizer. But the larger issue remains the lack of testing.

Michele Deitch, a prison conditions expert at the University of Texas law school, told the Tribune that in addition to contributing to undercounts, the shortage of tests also meant that the conditions in state jails were unlikely to improve anytime soon.

“Until they start doing mass testing, I don’t think they’re going to get a hold of the problem there,” Deitch said. “There are going to continue to be deaths, and it’s going to continue spreading to the communities both through staff and people who are released and people who are sent to community hospitals.”

Refinery29 has reached out to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for comment. We will update this story when we know more.

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The NYPD began a widespread crackdown on social distancing violations over the weekend, part of a broad mandate by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus. But while some transgressors got off with verbal warnings and summonses, at least two were tackled and beaten for their supposed infractions — prompting questions about disparities in the way police force is applied throughout the city.

Video taken in the East Village on Saturday shows a plainclothes officer tackling one man on the sidewalk as a crowd of bystanders looks on. Suddenly, the cop draws his Taser on one of the bystanders, commanding him to, “Move the f–k back right now.” When the man doesn’t immediately comply, the cop — who has been identified as Officer Francisco Garcia — begins to beat him, punching him multiple times and using his knee to the man’s neck to pin him to the ground.

CW: Police violence

This evening in Manhattan, an NYPD officer approaches a group of people filming an arrest, deploys his taser indiscriminately, then grabs a young man and, without provocation, slams him to the ground, starts beating him and, with another cop, handcuffs him. pic.twitter.com/N6bENczkOU

— Rebecca Kavanagh (@DrRJKavanagh) May 3, 2020

Daquan Owens, a bystander who filmed the incident, told the New York Daily News that the violence was unjustifiable. “Nothing was going on, nothing provoked the cop,” Owens said. “He just got up, pulled his Taser out. I guess he was frustrated and took his frustration out on the guy.”

The incident in the East Village sharply contrasts with other instances of social distancing enforcement over the weekend. In photos taken in Brooklyn’s Domino Park, police officers can be seen smiling as they hand out masks to civilians lounging on the grass near the waterfront.

In response to the weekend’s violence, de Blasio wrote in a tweet that he was “really disturbed” by the video that had emerged and said it was “simply not acceptable.” While New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams acknowledged that he didn’t know the specifics behind each incident that had taken place over the weekend, he said many had warned de Blasio that ramping up police enforcement would have disparate effects on different communities. Indeed, criminal justice advocates have long speculated that the criminalization of those flouting social distancing guidelines would fall along predictably racialized lines.

The crackdown on social distancing in New York City was prompted after a Williamsburg funeral for a prominent Hasidic rabbi drew some 2,500 attendees. In response to the incident, de Blasio announced on Twitter that “the time for warnings has passed,” in what many Jewish community leaders felt was a targeted attack based on de Blasio’s language in the tweet. Now, the mayor’s orders are being enforced in other communities, and using more harmful tactics. “I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups,” the mayor wrote. “This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period.”

In an interview with WNYC on Friday, de Blasio confirmed that a thousand police officers would be dispatched to city parks over the weekend to enforce what he described as a “no tolerance for gatherings” policy, and added that New Yorkers who were not wearing masks or maintaining six feet of distance between each other would be penalized. “We’re going straight to summons,” de Blasio said. “If someone resists the summons, we’re going to arrest.”

While city police have been reticent to release demographic data on summonses and arrests related to COVID-19 infractions, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea confirmed on Sunday that police had made three arrests and issued 51 summonses over the weekend.

When asked about the violent arrest over the weekend, the NYPD team said that “Our efforts are working: In more than 500,000 visits across the city in the last five weeks, NYPD officers have exercised discretion to use the last resort of enforcement in just a handful of cases. Most New Yorkers are voluntarily complying, highlighting the good that results when the public and the police work together to solve problems and change behavior,” they said in a statement to Refinery29. “But make no mistake: Enforcement action will be taken for those who refuse to cooperate.” 

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Two more acquaintances have corroborated former Senate staffer Tara Reade’s claims that she was sexually assaulted by former Vice President Joe Biden in 1993. Speaking to Business Insider, Lynda LaCasse, Reade’s former next door neighbor, and Lorraine Sanchez, a former colleague who worked with Reade in the California legislature, both confirmed that they spoke to Reade about the alleged impropriety in the mid-1990s. The accounts of the two women amount to the most substantial support for Reade’s accusations thus far.

“This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it,” LaCasse told Business Insider. “I remember her saying, here was this person that she was working for and she idolized him. And he kind of put her up against a wall. And he put his hand up her skirt and he put his fingers inside her. She felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn’t feel there was anything she could do.” 

During a March 25 appearance on The Katie Halper Show podcast, Reade claimed that Biden pushed her up against a wall and digitally penetrated her during her time as a staffer in his Senate office. She also reported that she was alleviated of some of her duties as a supervisor following the assault, claims that a former Senate intern later corroborated with the Washington Post.

Last Friday, more evidence emerged buttressing Reade’s allegations after The Intercept surfaced a call matching the description of one Reade claimed her mother had placed to the Larry King Show seeking advice for her daughter, who was experiencing “problems” in the office of a “prominent senator.” Reade has long maintained that she told her mother, brother, and a friend about the assault when it first happened, and a report by the New York Times confirmed that Reade did disclose the allegations to her brother.

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to Refinery29’s request for comment on the new support for Reade’s claims, but the allegations alone mean that both Biden — the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee — and incumbent president Donald Trump both stand accused of sexual assault heading into the November general election. 

The allegations put voters who value gender rights and reproductive justice in the unenviable position. The choice now remains between supporting Biden, a candidate who is not only facing assault allegations, but who stands accused of silencing Anita Hill, and sitting President Donald Trump, who has been accused of sexual assault by at least 20 women.

“It takes great courage and strength to come forward,” Sanchez told Business Insider of Reade’s allegations. “It’s much easier to keep silent. However, I also understand the duty we have as women to share our story regardless of who the perpetrator may be.”

Refinery29 has reached out to Joe Biden’s team for comment. We will update this story when we know more.

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The New York State Board of Elections moved to scrap the state’s June 23 Democratic primary on Monday, disappointing those who had still hoped to exercise a right to vote. Particularly, many who wished to cast their votes for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a symbolic show of support will no longer have that opportunity.

The move to cancel the primary comes less than 24 hours after lawyers representing the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ submitted a letter opposing his planned omission from the ballot as the former campaign endeavors to maximize its influence on the eventual policy platforms put forth by former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

According to the New York Times, state officials had “struggled” with whether or not to cancel the voting contest in the wake of Sanders’ decision to suspend his campaign on April 8. But in an interview given to City & State shortly after Sanders ended his candidacy, state Board of Election Democratic co-chair Douglas Kellner acknowledged that the primary would “probably” be cancelled, and Jay Jacobs, the chairman of the state Democratic Party, said that he hoped Sanders would “give his blessing to states that want to remove him from the ballot” in the interest of saving time and money while also safeguarding public health amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 

But, Sanders hoped to remain on the ballot in New York as part of a larger effort to shore up convention delegates nationally in order for his allies to receive seats on the rules and bylaws, party platform, and convention credentials committees at the Democratic National Convention this summer. Winning a quarter share of each committees’ membership would enable the Sanders bloc to submit a minority report to the convention floor, granting progressives influence on key party issues.

Five days after Sanders suspended his campaign, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a budget bill that included an errant provision allowing the state’s board of elections to remove candidates who had suspended their campaigns from the primary ballot. With no other candidates left on the ballot besides Biden, the move paved the way for the state to cancel the primary in its entirety, which is why Sanders lawyers believe it should not have been applied in the first place.

In the letter to New York campaign officials, Sanders campaign attorney Malcolm Seymour argues that the provision allowing Cuomo to remove Sanders from the ballot should not apply to the Vermont senator “retroactively,” since he might have acted differently if it had been in effect when he decided to suspend his campaign.

“The retroactive application of [the change in election law] would severely impact Senator Sanders’ core substantive rights,” Seymour wrote in the letter. “Because of the severity of this potential deprivation, the presumption against retroactive application must operate with maximum force.”

The decision makes New York the first state to officially cancel an election contest amid COVID-19 concerns, weeks after a disastrous primary turnout in Wisconsin turned into a public health nightmare. But experts warned that the decision to cancel primaries entirely without offering the option to vote by mail-in or absentee ballot could have an equally damaging outcome: a chilling effect on democracy.

Following the Monday announcement, Sanders’ campaign responded to the news with upset over the New York State Board of Elections’ decision. “Today’s decision by the State of New York Board of Elections is an outrage, a blow to American democracy, and must be overturned by the DNC,” the letter reads. “While we understood that we did not have the votes to win the Democratic nomination, our campaign was suspended, not ended, because people in every state should have the right to express their preference.”

“Their decision is bad,” Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, a co-chair of Sanders’ 2020 campaign, told HuffPost. “The ability of the people to weigh in was stripped from them before they had an opportunity to cast a ballot.”

In an op-ed for CNN, Nicole Austin-Hillery, executive director of the US Program at Human Rights Watch, wrote that even as the country wrestles the life and death decisions associated with a pandemic, protecting the right to vote is “more important now than ever.” 

“Ensuring people’s right to vote is at the heart of protecting our democracy,” Austin-Hillery writes. “The playbook has been written. Now governors and lawmakers need to show courage and conviction, prioritize the interests of the citizens they were elected to serve, and follow it.”

As a result of these actions, Twitter users — including a number of pundits and critics — are also chiming in to condemn New York for canceling the primary, saying that it’s an “act of voter suppression” that should not be tolerated, even during a pandemic.

Outrageous: New York has cancelled primary. Bernie is still on the ballot and people have a right to vote for him. If they want to incite Bernie voters to boycott the November elections, they are doing a great job. This bullshit decision must be overturned. Vote by mail is safe. https://t.co/Ye5fXG9w8c

— Daniel Denvir (@DanielDenvir) April 27, 2020

An act of voter suppression & NYS is not hiding it. Cuomo is no Democratic hero. NYer’s have yet to cast their vote for the presidential primary.

There is no reason why we cannot vote by mail instead of finding excuses to undercut voting powers.https://t.co/snlLed8CdI

— Shaniyat Chowdhury for US Congress NY5 (@Shaniyat2020) April 27, 2020

New York is living through its worst public health crisis in at least a century, and the state’s 20 million residents now have no way to meaningfully express a policy preference for Medicare For All in the primary.https://t.co/iqcCWCfc3Z

— Zach Schonfeld (@zzzzaaaacccchhh) April 27, 2020

“No one asked to cancel the New York election. The DNC didn’t request it. The Biden campaign didn’t request it. And our campaign communicated that we wanted to remain on the ballot,” Sanders’ statement says. “Given that the primary is months away, the proper response must be to make the election safe — such as going to all vote by mail — rather than to eliminating people’s right to vote completely.”

Sanders’ letter also communicated that in doing this, New York has violated its approved delegate selection plan, and if the situation is not rectified, the state should ultimately lose all its delegates in the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

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Just days after President Donald Trump appeared to publicly suggest that ingesting household cleaners could stave off coronavirus infections, states are reporting unusually high numbers of calls to poison control centers.

In an interview with NPR, New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said that its poison control center logged 30 cases of individuals injecting common disinfectants last week, compared to only 13 cases in the same 18-hour time frame last year. According to department spokesperson Pedro F. Frisneda, nine of the individuals in question had been exposed to Lysol, 10 cases were bleach-specific and the rest were all related to “exposures to other household cleaners.”

In a video posted to the “NYC Mayor’s Office” Twitter account on Friday, the same day the record-breaking number of calls was reported, NYC Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot debunked the idea that household cleaners could protect New Yorkers if ingested. “Very clearly, disinfectants are not intended for ingestion either by mouth, by ears, by breathing them in — in any way, shape or form,” she said. “And doing so can put people at great risk.”

But, the uptick in calls was not unique to just New York. The Illinois Department of Public Health was forced to issue a similar disclaimer last week following what the department’s director, Ngozi Ezike, said was “a significant increase in calls to the Illinois Poison Control Center in association with exposure to cleaning agents” following the president’s remarks.

On Sunday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) also both reported an increased calls to emergency hotlines in their states from people seeking advice on how to parse the comments. “I want to say, unequivocally no one should be using disinfectant, to digest it to fight COVID-19,” Whitmer said. “Please don’t do it. Just don’t do it.”

During a press briefing with his coronavirus task force on April 23, Trump appeared to make the dangerous and incoherent insinuation that using ultraviolet light and ingesting commercial cleaning products were among the potential treatments for the deadly virus that has claimed more than 55,000 American lives thus far. “I see the disinfectant — where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute,” Trump said. “And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”

The comments — made in the midst of a pandemic — are not the first time Trump has used a public briefing to tout dangerous and unfounded medical advice. On March 19, Trump began boosting the antimalarial drugs chloroquine and hydryroxychloroquine as having the potential to fight the virus. An Arizona man has since died from ingesting aquarium cleaner that contained chloroquine as an additive, and research has thus far found no definitive improvements among coronavirus patients treated with the drug.

While the president loves to rail against the “Fake News Media” — and has since claimed that his comments were sarcastic questions that the press has mischaracterized — the harmful effects of his own misinformation campaign are undeniably being felt around the country.

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By now, many Americans should have gotten some much-needed financial relief in the form of a government-issued stimulus check, but a botched rollout of the benefits has made it so that some people are still checking their mailboxes and bank accounts, wondering when the money will come. But, even if you have your federal coronavirus stimulus in-hand, it turns out there may still be reason to worry: Scammers are reportedly targeting the recipients of the one-time payments.

According to CBS News, the FBI’s internet portal is currently seeing somewhere between 3,000 to 4,000 complaints every day from cash-strapped Americans claiming that criminals have been targeting them via phone calls, text messages, and emails in attempts to collect on the bailout money.

In the last four weeks alone, more than 22 million Americans have filed jobless claims, and as many as 150 million households are reportedly eligible for the full or partial stimulus checks, according to estimates from the Tax Policy Center. But where there’s money, there is fraud, and scammers are reportedly waiting at the ready.

In one alleged scheme, fraudsters use a Facebook post touting grants to help seniors pay medical bills that links out to a phony government page that requests a Social Security number in order to “verify eligibility.” Another social media scam is a post advertising an “economic impact check” available to users who input their personal information, including banking details.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) also reported that “Scammers claim that you can get additional money – up to $150K in one case – or even receive your funds immediately. All you need to do is share personal details and pay a small ‘processing fee’.” 

“As this deadly virus continues to impact every part of our lives, scammers are looking to take advantage of all the chaos,” Kareem Carter, an IRS special agent overseeing criminal investigations said last week in a press release in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, CBS News reports. “They will prey on our hopes and fears to steal your money, your personal information, or both.”

The BBB scam tracker has also noted an increase in reports of people trying to access government-issued stimulus money from those susceptible to the ploy. “In addition to taking your money, these sites also can download malware to your device and use your information for identity theft,” they wrote.

In an effort to clamp down on COVID-19-related money fraud, the BBB issued a list of tips check recipients can employ in an effort to keep their funds safe. For starters, the Bureau says, it’s important to remember that the government will never use social media to communicate with Americans about their stimulus checks, so be wary of all Facebook links and direct messages advising otherwise. In addition, the IRS notes that all deposits will be made directly into your account, or sent to you directly by mail — but they will never call you to confirm your information or payment method.

The site also notes that the only official list of all U.S. federal grant-making agencies is Grants.gov, and advises against paying any money out of pocket for a government grant that is supposed to be free. Lastly, they write that anyone who has already received a check by mail is likely subject to being scammed, as government-issued mail checks have not yet been sent out.

If you have spotted a scam like this, please report it to the FBI or the BBB’s scam tracker.

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As the global coronavirus pandemic continues to wear on, Trump has taken the outbreak as an opportunity to host near-daily White House briefings that experts say are rife with misinformation. The televised appearances have drawn criticism for all the usual reasons Trump’s public addresses are prone to scrutiny: according to experts, the president’s addresses are considered pompous, often riddled with deflections, full of factual inaccuracies, and outright attacks on the media.

Now, Twitter users are calling on major news networks to stop airing President Donald Trump’s White House news briefings. The argument to remove Trump’s press briefings from the air altogether is gaining momentum, thanks to a Twitter hashtag premised on a new opinion column from Charles Blow in the New York Times. In the column, entitled “Stop Airing Trump’s Briefings!,” Blow recalls the early days of the 2016 presidential election, when Trump consistently ranked highest of any candidate in “earned” media coverage — taking advantage of positive, neutral, and negative press mentions in order to ensure that his campaign was always newsworthy.

The argument gained traction online on Monday, when “Stop Airing Trump’s Briefings!” began trending on Twitter, with several of Trump’s prominent opponents coopting the hashtag to argue that continuing to air White House press briefings where the president is freely speaking against expert opinion is essentially irresponsible.

“I have been shouting this for weeks!” feminist activist Amy Siskind wrote in a tweet. “Shame on our media! Trump has completely politicized this pandemic and the briefings have become a tool of that politicization. He is standing on top of nearly 40,000 dead bodies and using the media to distract.”

I have been shouting this for weeks! Shame on our media!
“Trump has completely politicized this pandemic and the briefings have become a tool of that politicization. He is standing on top of nearly 40,000 dead bodies and using the media to distract.” https://t.co/stfyCKIxDF

— Amy Siskind 🏳️‍🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) April 20, 2020

The column was also shared by other prominent figures in politics and the media, with journalist Katie Couric and former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile both tweeting out the link, signaling tacit agreement. Shortly after, thousands of Twitter users began demanding networks take action — which some networks have already began to consider.

During one particular appearance on April 13, both CNN and MSNBC abruptly cut away mid-briefing after Trump used the moment to air clips from FOX News praising his leadership during the pandemic. “We are going to avoid airing any more of this White House briefing until it returns to what it was supposed to be, which was the Coronavirus Task Force briefing providing medical information,” said MSNBC host Ari Melber, who called the video that had aired “some kind of backward looking edited video propaganda.” CNN anchor John King said, “To play a propaganda video at taxpayer expense in the White House briefing room is a new — you can insert your favorite word here in this administration.”

In an election year, the briefings also take on the sinister cast of being de facto political ads, which is why Twitter users have put out a grassroots call-to-arms in order to get networks to stop giving space for free airtime. “We are in the middle of a pandemic, but we are also in the middle of a presidential campaign, and I shudder to think how much ‘earned media’ the media is simply shoveling Trump’s way by airing these briefings,” Blow writes in the column.

“Let me be clear,” he continues. “Under no circumstance should these briefings be carried live. Doing so is a mistake bordering on journalistic malpractice. Everything a president does or says should be documented but airing all of it, unfiltered, is lazy and irresponsible.”

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At least 16 people, including a police officer, were killed by a gunman in a small town in Nova Scotia on Sunday in what amounts to one of the worst shooting rampages in Canada’s recent history.

The gunman, who was pronounced dead about 12 hours after the violence began, has been identified as Gabriel Wortman, 51. According to police, Wortman had known at least some of his initial victims, but the killings became more random as the shooting spree progressed. Investigators are probing whether or not the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has any connection to the killings, but so far police have not confirmed a motive.

Chief Superintendent Chris Leather, the Nova Scotia Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer responsible for criminal investigations, told the New York Times that police had initially been called to investigate an incident at a residence, where they discovered dead bodies in and outside the home. From there, police pursued Wortman over a 31-mile stretch of the province, while the suspect appeared to be disguised partially in what had been made to look like an RCMP official uniform and vehicle.

Wortman began his killing spree on Saturday night in Portapique and continued for about 12 hours until he reached a gas station in Enfield, north of Halifax. He died in Enfield, after witnesses reported to local news that they heard gun shots, though police have not yet confirmed this, the New York Times reports.

In a Facebook post, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Nova Scotia confirmed that Cst. Heidi Stevenson, a 23-year veteran of the force, was among the victims after responding to an active shooter incident.

“Today is a devastating day for Nova Scotia and it will remain etched in the minds of many, for years to come,” the post, shared on behalf of Nova Scotia RCMP Commanding Officer, Assistant Commissioner Lee Bergerman, reads in part.

According to the post, Stevenson leaves behind two children and a husband. The post also confirms that another R.C.M.P. officer is currently in the hospital, receiving treatment for non-life threatening injuries. “He and his family will be supported and we will be alongside him as he begins his road to recovery,” the post reads.

Stephen McNeil, the premier of Nova Scotia, called the incident “one of the most senseless acts of violence in our province’s history.” “To the families of the victims and to those still feeling afraid,” McNeil said, “my heart goes out to you. Know that all Nova Scotians are with you.”

Although Canada does not typically see gun violence on the same massive scale that the United States does, there have been notable exceptions in recent years. In 2017, a university student who reportedly harbored anti-refugee sentiments entered a Quebec City mosque and fatally shot six people as they prayed. One year later, a gunman killed two people and injured 13 others on a busy street in Toronto after appearing to open fire at random with a handgun.

Police are still investigating the mass crime that has taken 16 lives so far, and told Refinery29 they will be updating the public and media via their social media channels throughout the process.

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