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Watch Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal narrowly avoid a train during a railway safety press conference
April 19, 2014 -
Education secretary candidates include former Howard University dean, CT's commissioner of schools
7:18 p.m. -
HBO Max is finally coming to Roku ahead of Wonder Woman 1984
5:41 p.m. -
Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin reportedly fight on conference call over stimulus checks
5:40 p.m. -
Trump claims fired cybersecurity expert Chris Krebs was 'excoriated' during his Senate hearing. He wasn't.
5:29 p.m. -
Hilary Duff says the Disney+ Lizzie McGuire revival is dead
5:05 p.m. -
Ocasio-Cortez slams Pelosi and House leadership for hogging power
4:20 p.m. -
Twitter to remove COVID-19 vaccine misinformation
4:12 p.m.
Actions may speak louder than words, but Sen. Richard Blumenthal took that mentality to the extreme on Friday.
The Connecticut Democrat was standing behind Milford Mayor Ben Blake on the town's Metro-North station platform as the two held a press conference on railway safety. Complete with easels and charts, Blake was laying out the MTA's safety violations, which total 139 over the last 10 years, worth $552,000 in fines.
"Safety, as you know, is paramount," Blake said — and then this happened.

It would appear that taking personal responsibility for train safety is equally important. And that yellow line on the edge of the platform? It's there for a reason, senator.
Watch the video below. --Sarah Eberspacher
Leslie Fenwick, dean emeritus of Howard University School of Education and a professor of educational policy and leadership, and Miguel Cardona, Connecticut's commissioner of education, have emerged as two of the top contenders for President-elect Joe Biden's education secretary, several people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.
The education secretary will help schools navigate the final phase of the pandemic, with Biden saying he wants the person to create "clear, consistent, effective national guidelines." Biden's transition team is taking a close look at Fenwick and Cardona, several people told the Post, but there are still others under consideration and nothing is set in stone. Biden is expected to announce his pick before Christmas.
During his campaign, Biden said he would choose someone who taught in public schools for education secretary, and both Fenwick and Cardona have experience as K-12 teachers. Fenwick and Cardona also have courted controversy, the Post notes — Fenwick has criticized Teach for America and attempts to introduce corporate-style management techniques at schools, while Cardona pushed to get kids back into the classroom for in-person learning amid the pandemic. Catherine Garcia
When Wonder Woman 1984 makes its streaming debut, Roku users won't be left out in the cold after all.
WarnerMedia announced Wednesday it has finally worked out a deal to bring its streaming service HBO Max to Roku devices. The HBO Max app for Roku will be available on Dec. 17.
HBO Max launched at the end of May, but when it debuted, it didn't have an app on the two most popular streaming platforms, Roku and Amazon Fire devices. This was a major complication in the launch of a service positioned as a competitor to Netflix, and several months went by with the companies at a stalemate and unable to work out a deal. But after an agreement was reached to bring the HBO Max app to Amazon in November, the Roku deal finally came Wednesday, getting the app on both major platforms after more than six months.
WarnerMedia had previously announced that Wonder Woman 1984 would be debuting in the United States on HBO Max and in theaters on Dec. 25, leaving analysts to speculate that this date could effectively become a final deadline to get a Roku deal worked out and avoid leaving many viewers without a convenient way to watch the new blockbuster. And if that alone wasn't enough of an incentive, WarnerMedia later announced it would also debut every single Warner Bros. film scheduled for 2021 on HBO Max as well. Brendan Morrow
Things reportedly got testy on Wednesday during an internal conference call as lawmakers tried to iron out a bipartisan agreement for a coronavirus relief bill, The Washington Post reports.
Multiple aides told the Post that tensions flared specifically between Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), who reportedly got into a heated exchange over how big stimulus checks should be. Checks were initially left out of the $900 billion proposal before reportedly being added as part of a compromise. Sanders argued for more robust direct payments, while Manchin advocated for a lower amount, instead preferring to emphasize unemployment benefits.
Reports the Post, members trying to rush the $900 billion proposal into law are "infuriated" by the potential for Sanders' opposition to blow up the whole deal.
Sanders, for his part, has called the inclusion of $600 checks a "good start," but is vowing to keep fighting "for more." Read more at The Washington Post. Tim O'Donnell
President Trump is once again trying to discredit his former cybersecurity expert Christopher Krebs.
After Krebs, who Trump fired last month after he debunked claims and conspiracies voter fraud in 2020 election, testified for the Senate, the president tweeted that Krebs was "excoriated" by Republicans on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. But as a publicly available livestream of the hearing made clear, that's just not what happened.
This is false. No one excoriated Krebs at today’s hearing. He actually got a ton of bipartisan praise. https://t.co/HhmVrhRzGx
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) December 16, 2020
It's true that parts of Krebs' hearing got a little heated, like when committee chair Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) inflated claims of election fraud and ranking member Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) called him out for "running down a rabbit hole" of "false allegations."
A very heated moment between Ron Johnson and Gary Peters pic.twitter.com/e1zuGb9Kbr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 16, 2020
But the closest thing to an attack on Krebs came when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said the former official didn't have standing to claim this was "the most secure election in history," at least when it comes to domestic threats to the election. There were claims of fraud spread in Trump supporters' lawsuits, but Attorney General William Barr affirmed they didn't significantly affect the election.
"The election in many ways was stolen," Rand Paul lies, citing no evidence pic.twitter.com/G4m7mU7qRV
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 16, 2020
And overall, Krebs spent most of the hearing doing what got him fired: making it clear there was no evidence widespread fraud or illegal voting took place in the 2020 election and altered its results. Kathryn Krawczyk
This isn't what dreams are made of.
Hilary Duff announced Wednesday that the revival of her classic Disney Channel show Lizzie McGuire that was in the works for Disney+ is no longer happening.
"I know the efforts and conversations have been everywhere trying to make a reboot work but, sadly & despite everyone's best efforts, it isn't going to happen," Duff wrote. "I want any reboot of Lizzie to be honest and authentic to who Lizzie would be today. It's what the character deserves."
Duff was alluding to the fact that, according to Variety, she and showrunner Terri Minsky, the creator of the original series, were hoping to make a more adult revival, whereas Disney wanted it to be geared more toward kids. Disney, Variety reports, was "initially on board" with their approach, but "decided to move in a different direction" following the completion of the first two episodes. Minsky was ultimately removed as showrunner in January.
Previously, Duff pushed for Disney to move the Lizzie McGuire revival to Hulu rather than Disney+ so it could proceed with its more adult vision, writing, "I'd be doing a disservice to everyone by limiting the realities of a 30 year old's journey to live under the ceiling of a PG rating." She added, "It's important to me that just as her experiences as a preteen/teenager navigating life were authentic, her next chapters are equally as real and relatable."
A Disney spokesperson in a statement confirmed "we are not moving forward with the planned series," adding, "Lizzie McGuire fans have high expectations for any new stories," and "unless and until we are confident we can meet those expectations, we've decided to hold off." Brendan Morrow
It's no secret that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) doesn't always see eye to eye with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and others in Democratic congressional leadership. But, she told The Intercept in a podcast interview Wednesday, much of her discontent stems from the fact that the caucus' current top crop has been hogging power without "any real grooming of a next generation of leadership."
The congressmember, referring to both Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), said "a lot of this is not just about these two personalities, but also the structural shifts that these two personalities have led in their time in leadership. The structural shifts of power in the House, both in process and rule, to concentrate power in party leadership of both parties, frankly, but in the Democratic Party leadership to such a degree that an individual member has far less power than they did 30, 40, 50 years ago."
That setup, Ocasio-Cortez continued, winds up driving "the really talented members of Congress that do come along" to run for statewide office or pursue other avenues altogether. Read more at The Intercept. Tim O'Donnell
Twitter is set to crack down on misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines as the first doses begin to go out in the United States.
The social media company said Wednesday that beginning next week, it will be expanding its COVID-19 misinformation policy and "may require people to remove Tweets which advance harmful false or misleading narratives about COVID-19 vaccinations."
This, Twitter said, could include posts "that invoke a deliberate conspiracy" theory about vaccines, debunked claims about the effects of receiving a vaccine, or false claims that "vaccinations are unnecessary" because "COVID-19 is not real or not serious."
Additionally, starting early next year, Twitter said it may label tweets that "advance unsubstantiated rumors, disputed claims, as well as incomplete or out-of-context information about vaccines." The site previously removed tweets with false or misleading misinformation about "preventative measures, treatments, or other precautions to mitigate" COVID-19, among other false claims.
This move comes after Facebook announced earlier this month it would be removing false claims about COVID-19 vaccines "that have been debunked by public health experts" both on Facebook and Instagram. On Monday, the first American health care workers began to receive Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine, and a second vaccine could potentially be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration by the end of this week. Twitter said its updated policy will start being enforced on Dec. 21. Brendan Morrow
