Only a handful of people remain on a special team at the Department of Education tasked with investigating possibly fraudulent activities at large for-profit colleges, with current and former employees telling The New York Times their duties changed after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos hired people who once worked at those for-profit institutions.

The team was created in the wake of the 2016 collapse of Corinthian Colleges, as complaints started to flood in about for-profit institutions and their false advertising and program claims. At the end of the Obama administration, the team had about 12 people, but now, there are just three, and they are focusing on processing student loan forgiveness applications, the Times reports. Last year, investigators were looking into everything from the advertising to job placement claims at such for-profit schools as DeVry, but that investigation came to a screeching halt in early 2017, just a few months before DeVos named Julian Schmoke, a former dean at DeVry, as the team's new supervisor.

Members of the team were also investigating Bridgepoint Education and Career Education Corporation, but those cases have been shuttered, too, the Times reports; former employees of those institutions now work for DeVos: Robert Eitel as her senior counselor and Diane Auer Jones as her senior adviser on postsecondary education. Elizabeth Hill, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, told the Times in a statement that none of these new employees who used to be at for-profit schools have influenced the work of the unit. Read more about the team and new hires at The New York Times. Catherine Garcia

Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with killing two people during Kenosha, Wisconsin, protests over the summer, was released Friday after posting bail.

Rittenhouse was charged with homicide, attempted homicide, and other charges in the Aug. 25 shooting deaths of Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber in Kenosha. His attorney paid a $2 million cash bond on Friday, and Rittenhouse left the Kenosha County Jail that afternoon.

In late August, thousands of people turned out in Kenosha to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Members of militia groups and others claiming to be defending Kenosha businesses — Rittenhouse seemingly among them — also turned up and clashed with protesters.

Rittenhouse, who is from Illinois, was extradited to Wisconsin at the end of October to face homicide and attempted homicide charges. Rittenhouse's lawyers say he plans to plead not guilty to all charges, as they claim his actions were taken in self defense. Kathryn Krawczyk

The last thing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) needed was another boost to his ego. And yet that's just what "America's governor" received on Friday.

The man who led New York up and back down the coronavirus mountain will receive an International Emmy Founders Award later this month. He'll be recognized for his "leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic" and "his masterful use of TV to inform and calm people around the world," the International Emmys announced. "The governor's 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure," International Academy President and CEO Bruce L. Paisner said in a press release.

Cuomo's daily press conferences became necessary viewing material during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. His PowerPoints endeared him to some New Yorkers — and a lot of out-of-staters, and his stories of lockdown family woes inspired parody usually reserved for the president. All of that attention seemingly then pushed Cuomo to write a book about how he handled the pandemic, despite the fact that it's now worse than ever before. Kathryn Krawczyk

Members of President Trump's outside legal team, including Rudy Giuliani, have reportedly been sidelined from a meeting with Michigan lawmakers due to a case of COVID-19.

Giuliani and other Trump lawyers won't be able to attend a White House meeting scheduled for Friday with two Michigan lawmakers because they were recently exposed to the coronavirus, Axios reports. This meeting with lawmakers from the state where President-elect Joe Biden was projected to win, according to the Times, "appears to be a part of the president's campaign to interfere with the state's certification process."

But Andrew Giuliani, Rudy's son who is a staffer at the White House, on Friday announced he tested positive for COVID-19, and the Times reports he attended the Thursday news conference in which Rudy Giuliani pushed baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud. On a conference call with Trump officials on Friday, when the subject arose of which member of Trump's outside legal team would attend the White House meeting, Axios reports this planning quickly "fell apart" when it was revealed that Giuliani's son tested positive and it subsequently became clear that "the entire Giuliani-affiliated legal team was probably exposed."

Bloomberg's Jennifer Jacobs summed up the chaos by noting that Giuliani being forced to skip this meeting due to COVID-19 comes after White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Trump adviser David Bossie were both sidelined because they tested positive for the coronavirus.

Indeed, Axios wrote that this was just more "turmoil" thrown into Trump's legal efforts, with a campaign adviser saying, "It's just a s--tshow, it's a joke." Read more at Axios. Brendan Morrow

President Trump's legal team has finally revealed what it claims is a definitive example of election fraud in Michigan — based on data from Minnesota.

Since the presidential election more than two weeks ago, Trump and his supporters have launched legal efforts aimed at somehow overturning President-elect Joe Biden's win. Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Jenna Ellis continued that effort in a wild Thursday press conference where they waved around a single affidavit, and claimed they had "hundreds" more, revealing all sorts of election fraud.

Trump's team still hasn't shared many of those affidavits with the public, but has begun filing them in lawsuits across the country. One, from a Texas resident who works in cybersecurity, was filed in Georgia on Wednesday, but claims vote tallying machines in Michigan are highly susceptible to fraud. It goes on to list several "statistical red flags" that purport to show how those machines may have been manipulated, including numbers that imply as many as 350 percent of estimated voters in a range of Michigan towns cast ballots. The problem is, the towns the affidavit lists are all scattered across eastern Minnesota, not Michigan.

The affidavit also claims there have been reports of votes switched from Trump to Biden in "Antium County, Michigan." There's no such county in the state, or in the United States at all. And if the affidavit means to imply there was fraud in Antrim County, Michigan, well, its county clerk has already corrected and testified regarding any mistaken voting tallies there. Kathryn Krawczyk

Judge Merrick Garland is reportedly under consideration to serve as attorney general in President-elect Joe Biden's administration.

Garland, the federal appeals court judge who was nominated by former President Barack Obama to serve on the Supreme Court, is one of the candidates Biden is considering for the attorney general position, NPR reported on Friday.

Obama in 2016 nominated Garland to fill the Supreme Court seat left open after Justice Antonin Scalia's death, but Senate Republicans didn't hold a confirmation hearing for him, arguing that a new Supreme Court justice should not be seated during an election year. Senate Republicans later confirmed Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated by President Trump, to the Supreme Court during an election year in 2020, contending that the situation was different in the latter case because this time the same party controlled both the Senate and the presidency. Garland formerly served as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Among other possible contenders for the position of attorney general in Biden's administration include Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, according to CBS News. But CBS also reports that the question of who Biden will pick for this position "isn't likely to be answered for several weeks." Brendan Morrow

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow is opening up about her partner Susan's experience with COVID-19 — and imploring her audience to do "whatever you can" to avoid getting it.

Maddow previously announced she would be quarantining after a close contact tested positive for the coronavirus, and on her show on Thursday, she revealed this close contact was her partner, Susan, the "center of my life."

"Susan has been sick with COVID these past couple of weeks, and at one point, we really thought that there was a possibility that it might kill her," Maddow said.

The MSNBC host, who said she has tested negative for COVID-19 herself, went on to describe how Susan got "sicker and sicker" while they had to remain separated, though now she is "recovering" and is "gonna be fine." But after this scary experience, Maddow offered a plea to take the pandemic seriously, especially ahead of Thanksgiving.

"What you need to know is that whoever is the most important person in your life, whoever you most love and most care for and most cherish in the world, that's the person who you may lose," Maddow said "... However you've calibrated risk in your life, don't get this thing. Do whatever you can to keep from getting it."

Maddow added that while not having people over for Thanksgiving next week is "gonna suck," it's "gonna suck so much less than you or somebody in your family getting this and getting sick. Trust me." Brendan Morrow