About two weeks before the 2018 midterm elections, President Trump told then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and White House staffers that "extreme action" was needed to keep migrants from entering the United States at the southern border, and later that day, a shocking suggestion was made, two former officials told The New York Times.

During a meeting with top leaders of the Department of Homeland Security, officials from Customs and Border Protection suggested deploying the Active Denial System, a microwave weapon known as a "heat ray" that was designed by the military to disperse crowds. When its invisible beams hit a person's skin, it feels like it is being burned. The Times notes that the heat ray is rarely used now questions about its effectiveness and whether it's moral to deploy.

The former officials told the Times people in the room were shocked by the suggestion, and after the meeting, Nielsen told an aide she would not authorize use of such a device and it must never be mentioned in her presence again. It's unclear if Trump knew about the proposal. A Homeland Security spokesman told the Times on Wednesday the suggestion was "never considered."

Most of the Trump administration's policies have been slammed by immigration advocates, including the separation of migrant children from their parents, the lowering of the annual cap for refugees, and the travel bans on predominantly Muslim countries. Catherine Garcia

The Supreme Court on Monday night said Pennsylvania election officials will be allowed to count mail-in ballots received up to three days after Election Day, rejecting a Republican request to block a Pennsylvania state court ruling granting the extension.

The court was tied 4-4, The Washington Post reports, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh — the court's most conservative justices – saying they would have issued a stay on the ruling, which required five votes.

Pennsylvania is a battleground state that President Trump narrowly won in 2016 — he beat Hillary Clinton there by just 44,000 votes. Catherine Garcia

Department of Justice lawyers argued on Monday that President Trump should not be personally sued for denying a rape accusation because he refuted the allegation while acting in his official capacity as president, The New York Times reports.

In June 2019, writer E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a department store in the 1990s. He publicly rejected this claim and accused her of lying to sell her new book; in return, Carroll filed a defamation suit against him. Last month, Attorney General William Barr intervened in the lawsuit, a highly unusual move, seeing as how the alleged incident took place years before Trump became president.

The government lawyers argued on Monday that Trump didn't slander Carroll and his denial was an official act because he "addressed matters relating to his fitness for office as part of an official White House response to press inquiries. Given the president's position in our constitutional structure, his role in communicating with the public is especially significant."

Earlier this month, Carroll's lawyers filed court papers trying to block the Department of Justice from taking over Trump's case, saying "there is not a single person in the United States — not the president and not anyone else — whose job description includes slandering women they sexually assaulted." Catherine Garcia

Jeffrey Epstein's confidante Ghislaine Maxwell has lost her fight to keep testimony about Epstein a secret.

A federal appeals court ruled against Maxwell in two combined cases on Monday, the Miami Herald reports. A lower court had ruled Maxwell's 2016 testimony regarding Epstein could be released, and the Second Circuit court agreed.

In question was a 418-page deposition Maxwell gave in April 2016 in a now-settled civil lawsuit regarding Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail after being accused of running a minor sex ring. The suit came from Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre. The transcripts "could shed new light on the Epstein empire," as Maxwell is alleged to have aided Epstein for years, the Miami Herald suggests. The Herald, which has published groundbreaking reporting on Epstein and Maxwell, had sued to get the documents released.

Maxwell was arrested over the summer and is awaiting trial for charges of sexually trafficking minor girls. Maxwell's lawyers argued releasing the documents' "intimate, sensitive, and personal" information could jeopardize Maxwell from having a fair trial. Maxwell has denied the charges against her. Kathryn Krawczyk

After the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman, Netflix has just offered a glimpse at his final film performance.

The Black Panther star died in August following a battle with cancer, and the last movie he completed prior to his death was Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which on Monday got its first full trailer.

The film from Netflix is based on the August Wilson play of the same name, and Boseman stars as trumpeter Levee opposite Viola Davis in 1927 Chicago. "Tensions rise between Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), her ambitious horn player (Chadwick Boseman), and the white management determined to control the legendary 'Mother of the Blues,'" Netflix's description reads.

When Boseman's death was announced, his family revealed he had been quietly fighting colon cancer for years in between roles. "A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all, and brought you many of the films you have come to love so much," his family's statement said. "From Marshall to Da 5 Bloods, August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and several more, all were filmed during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy."

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom will arrive on Netflix months after Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods, in which Boseman drew acclaim for his supporting performance. Both films being released in 2020 opens up the possibility, Variety writes, that Boseman could potentially become the first actor ever nominated for two posthumous Oscars in the same year. Check out the trailer for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which will hit Netflix on Dec. 18, below. Brendan Morrow

Jeffrey Toobin has been suspended by The New Yorker after he exposed himself during a Zoom call in what he's describing as an "embarrassingly stupid mistake."

Toobin, reporter at The New Yorker and author of books like The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson, was suspended by the publication after he "exposed himself during a Zoom call last week between members of the New Yorker and WNYC radio," Vice reported on Monday. Toobin acknowledged the incident in a statement to Vice, saying he wrongly thought he wasn't on camera at the time.

"I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera," Toobin said in a statement to Vice. "I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers. I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video."

A New Yorker spokesperson confirmed to Vice that Toobin is suspended "while we investigate the matter." Toobin is also chief legal analyst at CNN, and the network said that he "has asked for some time off while he deals with a personal issue, which we have granted." Brendan Morrow

The Department of Justice has announced charges against six Russian intelligence officers in connection with a series of majorly "disruptive and destructive" cyberattacks.

The DOJ on Monday said that a federal grand jury had indicted six Russian computer hackers, officers of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), for their role in a series of "computer intrusions and attacks" conducted from 2015 through 2019 "for the strategic benefit of Russia." This allegedly included malware attacks against Ukraine's electric power grid, as well as efforts to disrupt France's 2017 elections and the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Officials also said the defendants were responsible for "destructive malware attacks that infected computers worldwide" and led to nearly $1 billion in losses.

The alleged hackers, The Washington Post notes, are a part of the same intelligence agency previously charged over interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, although the indictment unsealed on Monday didn't include charges related to U.S. election interference. NBC News' Kevin Collier wrote that "naming six officers (allegedly) responsible for election meddling and destruction two weeks before the election seems a pretty clear sign." The Post reports that "officials said the announcement was not timed to the current political schedule," however.

Johns Hopkins University professor Thomas Rid also described the indictment as an "incredible document," which suggests intelligence communities "must have stunning visibility into Russian military intelligence operations if today's disclosures are considered dispensable."

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers in a statement on Monday said "no country has weaponized its cyber capabilities as maliciously or irresponsibly as Russia, wantonly causing unprecedented damage to pursue small tactical advantages and to satisfy fits of spite," saying the defendants were charged over the "most disruptive and destructive series of computer attacks ever attributed to a single group" and adding, "No nation will recapture greatness while behaving in this way." Brendan Morrow