FlashMobOfOne

WASHINGTON ― President Joe Biden on Saturday named former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and billionaire political activist and philanthropist George Soros recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, part of a group of 19 people selected for the nation's highest civilian honor.

Others presented the medal by the outgoing president at a White House ceremony included U2 frontman Bono, actor Michael J. Fox, actor Denzel Washington, chef José Andrés and William Sanford Nye, better known as television's "Bill Nye the Science Guy."

From the sports world, decorated professional soccer player Lionel Messi of Argentina and retired NBA legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson also received the medal. Messi did not attend the ceremony because of a scheduling issue.

Mount Prospect Police Chief Michael Eterno said the teens attacked the two men in two different incidents on the evening of July 8, 2024. The victims were two gay men, aged 41 and 23, who responded to ads placed on an unnamed gay dating app. After arriving at the locations, a combination gas station and convenience store parking lot and a residential street in a different part of town, the teens allegedly attacked the men and vandalized their cars. Both victims were able to escape and report the attacks to police.

The charged teens were all aged 17 except for one boy aged 16. Police say all 11 participated in one or both attacks. Each was charged with either one or two felony counts each of Aggravated Battery, Criminal Damage to Property, and Mob Action. One of the 17-year-olds was also charged with two felony Hate Crime counts for “yelling a racial and another derogatory term” during the attacks.

Hello, fellow nerds:

What are some neat monsters or creatures I could use for a new campaign I'm running in 2025. The gist is that one of the four sons of the Vyshaantar Empire has gathered strength, occupied a castle in the Misty Forest, and is looking to take over the entirety of the territory and spearhead a resurgence of the Vyshaantar Empire. (Or, to put it even more succinctly: Nazi Elves.)

I've got a few Vyshaantar enemies built out, like a Vyshaantar Sniper, Elven War Golem, Corrupted Treant, and Pyromancer.

What are some others that are different but would fit this kind of campaign?

The United States saw an 18.1% increase in homelessness this year, a dramatic rise driven mostly by a lack of affordable housing as well as devastating natural disasters and a surge of migrants in several parts of the country, federal officials said Friday.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said federally required tallies taken across the country in January found that more than 770,000 people were counted as homeless — a number that misses some people and does not include those staying with friends or family because they do not have a place of their own.

That increase comes on top of a 12% increase in 2023, which HUD blamed on soaring rents and the end of pandemic assistance. The 2023 increase also was driven by people experiencing homelessness for the first time. The numbers overall represent 23 of every 10,000 people in the U.S., with Black people being overrepresented among the homeless population.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who briefly stood to become President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be attorney general, was found by congressional ethics investigators to have paid numerous women — including a 17-year-old girl — for sex, and to have purchased and used illegal drugs, including from his Capitol Hill office, according to a final draft of a comprehensive investigative report obtained by CBS News.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Eric DeValkenaere will be home for Christmas. Late Friday afternoon Missouri Governor Mike Parson commuted Devalkenaere for the December 2019 killing of Cameron Lamb.

Lamb was shot and killed by DeValkenaere as he was backing a truck into a garage at his home. DeValkenaere’s attorneys argued the detective and his partner were doing their jobs, following up on reports that Lamb’s vehicle had been chasing another car through town.

The attorneys argued that the detectives believed Lamb was reaching for a gun and DeValkenaere was worried about his partner.

DeValkenaere was convicted in a bench trial of second-degree manslaughter in the case. He was sentenced to six years in prison, but his legal team appealed. He was allowed to stay out of jail while awaiting an appeal decision. The appeal was denied, and DeValkenaere was taken into custody in October 2023.

A senior White House official urged Kyiv on Thursday to lower conscription age to 18 to replenish the losses of manpower in Donbas, where Russian forces have spurred their advance on several strategic, heavily fortified strongholds.

“The need right now is manpower,” the unnamed official told reporters in Washington. “Mobilisation and more manpower could make a significant difference at this time, as we look at the battlefield today.”

Ukraine’s top brass has not even discussed the issue.

“No meetings to discuss this issue have been held, no suggestions on lowering [the conscription age] have been made,” a source in Ukraine’s General Staff of Armed Forces told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

So far, Kyiv has officially responded with a refusal and a rebuke.

“It doesn’t make sense to see calls for Ukraine to lower the mobilisation age, presumably in order to draft more people, when we can see that previously announced [Western military] equipment is not arriving on time,” Dmitry Litvin, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, posted on X.

“Because of these delays, Ukraine lacks weapons to equip already mobilised soldiers,” he wrote.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In a town that has been through it all and is clawing its way back, a man named Omidullah is looking to hit paydirt.

The Kabul real estate agent is selling a nine-bedroom, nine-bath, white-and-gold villa in the Afghan capital. On the roof’s gable, glittering Arabic script tempts buyers and brokers with the word “mashallah” — “God has willed it.”

The villa is listed at $450,000, a startling number in a country where more than half of the population relies on humanitarian aid to survive, most Afghans don’t have bank accounts, and mortgages are rare. Yet the offers are coming in.

“It’s a myth that Afghans don’t have money,” Omidullah said. “We have very big businessmen who have big businesses abroad. There are houses here worth millions of dollars.”

In Kabul, a curious thing is happening to fuel the high-end real estate market. Peace, it seems, is driving up property prices.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Workers who clean airplanes, remove trash and help with wheelchairs at Charlotte’s airport, one of the nation’s busiest, went on strike Monday during a busy week of Thanksgiving travel to demand higher wages.

The Service Employees International Union announced the strike in a statement early Monday, saying the workers would demand “an end to poverty wages and respect on the job during the holiday travel season.” The strike was expected to last 24 hours, said union spokesperson Sean Keady.

Employees of ABM and Prospect Airport Services cast ballots Friday to authorize the work stoppage at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, a hub for American Airlines. The two companies contract with American, one of the world’s biggest carriers, to provide services such as cleaning airplane interiors, removing trash and escorting passengers in wheelchairs.

A week before the election, my dad was visiting and talked to me about his gut feeling that former President Donald Trump might win. He was clear about his choice to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. “But what are they doing?” he asked me, exasperated.

“They need to level with people about the economy,” he continued. “I know so many people who can’t afford a place to live any more. People do not want to hear, ‘Well, actually the economy is good.’”

Then suddenly he pivoted away from Harris to liberals more generally, and away from the economy into culture.

“You know, another thing: I’m tired of feeling like I’m going to get jumped on for saying something wrong, for using the wrong words,” my dad confided, becoming uncharacteristically emotional. “I don’t want to say things that will offend anyone. I want to be respectful. But I think Trump is reaching a lot of people like me who didn’t learn a special way to talk at college and feel constantly talked down to by people who have.”

At 71 years old, my dad is still working full time, helping to run a delicatessen at a local farmers’ market. He didn’t go to college. Raised Mennonite and socially conservative, he is nonetheless open-minded and curious. When his cousins came out as gay in the 1980s, he accepted them for who they are.

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (KCTV) - An Independence woman, who doctors told would be partially blind for the rest of her life, is regaining her vision due to a relatively new implant approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The Supreme Court rejected Republicans’ request to block Pennsylvania officials from counting provisional ballots by voters whose mail ballots are rejected for technical flaws.

The high court order follows Wednesday’s order permitting a GOP-backed purge of Virginia voter rolls ahead of Election Day. The Virginia order was entered over dissent from the court’s three Democratic appointees.

In the Pennsylvania case, the state Supreme Court split 4-3 in upholding a lower court ruling that required the counting of provisional ballots submitted by voters who are told their mail ballots can’t be counted. “Provisional ballots exist as a failsafe to preserve access to the right to vote,” the state court said, noting that such ballots can only be counted if no other ballots from a voter are counted.

“The General Assembly wrote the Election Code with the purpose of enabling citizens to exercise their right to vote, not for the purpose of creating obstacles to voting,” the state court majority said.

A key swing state, Pennsylvania was decided by about 80,000 votes in Joe Biden’s 2020 victory over Donald Trump and by about 44,000 votes in Trump’s 2016 win over Hillary Clinton. The 2024 race between Trump and Kamala Harris is also expected to be close.