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Two of basketball’s biggest stars have been chipping in to help Florida felons vote in this year’s election.
LeBron
James and Michael Jordan helped join Michael Bloomberg’s $27 million
effort to help clear fines and fees for about 40,000 felons in the state
so that they can vote in Tuesday’s election, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
It’s not clear how much they contributed. Spokespeople for both Bloomberg and James’ “More Than A Vote” organization did not return the Times’ requests for comment.
Bloomberg enlists celebrities to help Florida felons
James and Jordan are just the latest to help pitch in and assist Florida felons vote in this year’s election.
About
1.4 million Floridians had their right to vote restored in 2018 thanks
to Amendment 4, which allowed convicted felons who have served their
sentences to vote again — with the exception of murder or sexual abuse.
Last
year, however, Republican lawmakers and the governor passed a law that
required ex-felons to pay back court fines and fees before regaining
their right to vote — which is essentially a poll tax and was found to
be unconstitutional in May.
An appeals court ruling earlier this
year overturned that unconstitutional ruling. Five of the six votes that
overturned that ruling, according to The New York Times, came from judges who were appointed by President Donald Trump.
About
75 percent of former felons owe court debt, and about 70 percent of
them are unable to pay. There is no central database used in the state,
either, making paying those fees extremely difficult if not impossible.
According to the Tampa Bay Times,
about 32 percent of the 4,700 felons who had their rights restored
through Bloomberg’s foundation in the states four biggest counties had
registered to vote.
A
$27 million effort led by Michael Bloomberg, LeBron James, Michael
Jordan and others helped Florida felons vote on Tuesday. (Mike
Ehrmann/Getty Images)
Local Police Say Biden Staffer May Have Been ‘At Fault’ in ‘Trump Train’ Highway Incident
Mairead McArdle
Local police in Texas
said over the weekend that the vehicle of a Joe Biden staffer may be
“at fault” in a minor collision that occurred during an incident where
Trump supporters in trucks surrounded and followed a Biden campaign bus.
The
incident occurred on I-35 in Hays County and involved a Biden staffer’s
white SUV making contact with a Trump supporter’s black truck.
The San Marcos Police Department, which is handling any potential police reports on the crash, said it has researched the collision and watched footage of the incident online.
“The
at-fault vehicle may be the white SUV and the victim appears to be the
black truck,” the police department said in a statement.
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“Calls
to the driver of the white SUV have gone unanswered and SMPD has not
been contacted by the driver of the black truck. Since SMPD has not
spoken to either driver at this time, additional investigation would be
required to fully ascertain who was at fault,” the department said.
The
police department also said the Biden bus requested a police escort,
but due to traffic police were not able to reach the campaign bus before
it exited the jurisdiction.
Katie Naranjo, chair of the Travis
County Democratic Party said in a tweet that Trump supporters followed
the Biden bus through central Texas “to intimidate Biden supporters.”
“They ran into a person’s car, yelling curse words and threats. Don’t let bullies win, vote,” she wrote.
The Biden campaign also condemned the group of Trump supporters, accusing them of endangering those close to the campaign.
“Rather
than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different
visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump
supporters in Texas instead decided to put our staff, surrogates,
supporters, and others in harm’s way,” said Tariq Thowfeek, the Biden campaign’s Texas communications director.
President
Trump on Saturday tweeted a video that appears to show his supporters
surrounding the bus along with the words “I LOVE TEXAS!”
The
nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Wednesday moved the presidential
race in Texas from “lean Republican” to “toss up.” Trump is up by one
point in the state as of Tuesday, a day before the election, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls.
Across
the country, cases of COVID-19 are increasing at an alarming pace. In
the last seven days, more than 500,000 people were diagnosed with
COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And a growing number of people have no idea how they contracted the virus, doctors say.
“It’s
increasingly becoming common” for patients to not know how they got
COVID-19, Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins
Center for Health Security, tells Yahoo Life. Dr. Richard Watkins, an
infectious disease physician and professor of internal medicine at the
Northeast Ohio Medical University, agrees. He tells Yahoo Life that
“lately, most of” his patients don’t know where they contracted the
virus. The same is true for Dr. Rajeev Fernando, an infectious disease
expert in Southampton, N.Y. For many of his patients, “it’s because
people tell me they’ve not been wearing masks as they should,” he tells
Yahoo Life.
This trend says a lot about the virus and where things
are headed, Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist and
professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, tells Yahoo
Life. “The virus can spread from people who have no symptoms or who are
asymptomatic,” he says. “It’s now spreading in a way that people
experience when they get the common cold. They wonder, ‘Where did I get
that?’ and it can be difficult to really know the answer. This is an
indication of how widely spread the virus has become in our
communities.”
An
attendant talks to a person in line at a coronavirus testing site at
Ascarate Park on Saturday in El Paso, Texas. Doctors say a growing
number of people have no idea how they contracted the virus. (Cengiz
Yar/Getty Images)
Henry F. Raymond,
associate professor and epidemiologist at the Rutgers School of Public
Health, tells Yahoo Life that the increase in people who don’t know how
they contracted COVID-19 indicates that “there are a lot of asymptomatic
spreaders.”
“It’s no longer obvious, like you were with a friend,
they looked bad and they sneezed on you,” he says. “We’re definitely
seeing a lot of younger people who are asymptomatic, carrying the virus
and spreading it.”
At the same time, “many people don’t understand
how contagious the coronavirus is,” Watkins says, adding, “this,
combined with the high number of asymptomatic infected people, is what
is driving the pandemic, which is not showing signs of slowing. We are
definitely not ‘turning a corner.’”
Not knowing how you caught the
virus can make it difficult for contact tracers to figure out patterns
in transmission, Raymond says. It’s not entirely cut and dry, though.
“In
some ways it’s easier, in some ways it’s harder,” Adalja says. “If you
don’t know who you got the virus from, it’s hard to find patterns with
contact tracing.” But people are increasingly spending time in smaller
groups, which can make it easier for contact tracers to know who to
contact next, he says. “If you have only been around three people, it’s
easier to know who are your contacts,” Adalja says.
The rise of contact tracing apps like New York’s COVID Alert NY and Pennsylvania’s COVID Alert PA
may help, but it’s too soon to know how much they can contribute,
Raymond says. “It’s too early to tell how many people are actually going
to download them and activate them to see what impact it might have,”
he says.
The trend toward people hosting others in their own homes
as the weather cools is concerning to Adalja. “It’s harder to intervene
in what people are doing in their own homes versus in mass gatherings
or at a restaurant. It’s much more difficult to come up with a plan for
people to follow.”
That’s why Adalja recommends that people remain
“really vigilant” about how they’re acting when they’re around others.
In addition to following the CDC’s guidelines
for preventing the spread of the virus, like wearing masks, practicing
social distancing and washing hands regularly, Adalja urges people to
think about their potential exposure at home. “If you can see other
people outdoors instead of indoors and keep your distance, that’s
better,” he says. “I suspect that people are not going to be wearing
face coverings in their own home.”
Raymond stresses that people
should be aware that current case counts of the virus are “just the tip
of the iceberg,” adding, “in general, the amount of virus in the
community is much higher than people realize.” There are “probably
thousands who are, on some level of the spectrum — maybe they feel achy
but they don’t get a test, or they don’t feel bad at all but they’re
spreading the virus — and they’re not being counted,” Raymond says.
Raymond
urges people to be aware that the pandemic is still ongoing, and that
it’s getting worse. “We are in this for a longer time than we ever
hoped,” he says. “Now is not the time to think that the fight is over.”
Wolves G Malik Beasley charged with pointing assault rifle at family on parade of homes tour
Malik Beasley faces multiple felony charges after an alleged incident with an assault rifle. (David Berding/Getty Images)
Minnesota
Timberwolves guard Malik Beasley was arrested after police say he
pointed an assault rifle at a family of three that approached his rental
home during a parade of homes tour in the Minneapolis suburb of
Plymouth.
Beasley and his girlfriend, Montana Yao, are also facing
drug charges after the incident led to a search of their home and the
seizure of nearly two pounds of marijuana, according to a statement from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office.
Felony charges against Beasley, girlfriend
Beasley
is charged with fifth-degree drug possession and felony threats of
violence while Yao is charged with fifth-degree drug possession. Both
are 23. They have a 1½-year-old son together. The alleged incident took
place on Sept. 26.
“We
are aware of the charges involving Malik Beasley,” the statement reads.
“We take these allegations seriously and will let the legal process run
its course.”
What allegedly happened
According to the charges,
a couple and their 13-year-old daughter pulled up to the shoulder of
the road in front of Beasley’s home in their SUV while touring the
parade of homes. Beasley’s house was roped off. As the family sat in the
SUV, Beasley allegedly approached the vehicle with an assault rifle and
tapped on a window.
He pointed the gun at the vehicle and told the family to “get the f--- off” his property, according to prosecutors.
The criminal complaint described the weapon as an “all-black assault
rifle with a forehand grip” and a scope. He kept the gun pointed at the
vehicle as it drove away, according to the complaint.
Police search allegedly led to more guns, pot
The
alleged incident prompted multiple 911 calls and led police to search
Beasley’s home for the rifle. When they entered the home, they say they
detected an “overwhelming odor” of marijuana and found 1.8 pounds of the
drug in the home. They claim they found a rifle matching the one
described in the report in addition to a 12-gauge shotgun and a handgun.
Police
say they also seized surveillance footage from the home showing Beasley
grabbing his rifle and taking it outside around the same time the
family reported the confrontation.
Beasley averaged 20.7 points per game in 14 games with the Timberwolves last season after a midseason trade from the Denver Nuggets. He has a court appearance scheduled for Nov. 19. Yao is due in court on Dec. 29.
