VOGUE Williams has joked that husband Spencer Matthews is no longer interested in sex as she enters the final weeks of her pregnancy.

Speaking to Joanne McNally on their My Therapist Ghosted Me podcast, the 40-year-old admitted she had not taken kindly to the apparent turn of events.

“I’m trying to look good today because I don’t think Spenny fancies me anymore,” Vogue confessed.

Her podcast co-host Joanne McNally jokingly replied: “Of course he doesn’t! You’ve been married for ages now, come on!”

Laughing off the comment, Vogue continued: “No, because I think our fun times are over, if you get me. I’m too pregnant now.

“I don’t want to. I was just being a nice wife and a good participant.

letting slip

Vogue Williams reveals gender of hers and Spencer Matthew’s fourth baby

OH BABY

Pregnant Vogue Williams reveals two unusual names for fourth baby ahead of birth

“But then when he was like, ‘Yeah, well, you’re really pregnant,’ I was like, ‘Excuse me? Sorry, are you not into it anymore?’

“And he’s like, ‘Vogue, you’re giving birth any minute now.’”

Later in the podcast, Vogue described having to get up for yet another trip to the loo during the night.

“What part of me do you not find attractive?” she joked.

Pregnancy can cause women to need the toilet more frequently as the growing baby puts pressure on the bladder.

Their producer Joe then offered his take, saying: “I can’t speak for the whole male population, but I suspect on his part there comes a point where you’re sort of thinking more about the presence of a baby than the woman herself.”

Vogue hit back: “Well, do you know what, Joe? People are mad for pregnancy porn. Loads of people fancy pregnant people.”

Spencer and Vogue are expecting their fourth child, a baby boy, this autumn.

They are already parents to sons Theodore, seven, and Otto, three, as well as daughter Gigi, five.

Dr. Heidi Overton, a top White House aide, has been picked to lead the Food and Drug Administration, President Trump announced Wednesday.

As a medical doctor and deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council who has worked on several of Trump’s second-term health initiatives, Overton has become a trusted figure in the administration and a champion of the president’s goals.

Yet any new FDA commissioner will have to balance a raft of competing priorities, between Trump’s fixations, the anti-regulatory interests of traditional Republicans and the anti-corporate posture of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Those challenges dogged the tenure of the previous FDA head, Dr. Marty Makary, who resigned in May, leaving behind unfinished projects including work on ultraprocessed foods, antidepressants and COVID-19 shots.

Referring to a “Dr. Heidi” in a Truth Social post, Trump called Overton a smart and respected “rockstar” who would deliver on his priorities of faster cures, innovation, lower drug prices and more wins for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement.

Swenson writes for the Associated Press.

Josh Tongue removes Salman Ali Agha and Ali Usman in back-to-back balls but falls just short of the hat-trick as Khurram Shahzad hits the third delivery emphatically for four on day one of the opening Test between England and Pakistan at Headingley.

FOLLOW LIVE: England v Pakistan – Day One

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Aug. 19 (UPI) — A helicopter pilot and six passengers are dead after a crash at Mount Ololokwe in central Kenya, officials reported.

The passengers were tourists, but the Aircraft Accident Investigation Department said the nationalities of the pilot and passengers are not yet confirmed.

The accident happened in Samburu county at 9:13 a.m. local time. The helicopter was a Eurocopter EC130 B4, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said.

The scenic flight was from a wildlife conservancy in Loisaba to Ewaso Ng’iro, a river that flows along several national reserves.

The Kenya Red Cross said the site of the crash isn’t yet accessible but drones have assessed the scene, the BBC reported.

“Search and recovery efforts are ongoing, hampered by difficult terrain access and an active fire at the crash site,” the Kenya Red Cross said on X. “An additional team has been dispatched from Isiolo to reinforce the operation.”

Kenya has a history of multiple helicopter crashes.

In March 2024, Kenya’s Chief of Defense Gen. Francis Omondi Ogolla and nine others were killed in a helicopter crash in the country. Two people survived.

In 2019, four Americans and a pilot were killed in a helicopter crash in Kenya.

In 2012, three people were killed and six were injured in a crash on takeoff at the Masai Mara game reserve in Kenya.

New imagery provides what appears to be the first visual confirmation that Singapore has begun installing the Blue Spear surface-to-surface missile, also known as the 5G SSM, on its Formidable class frigates. The appearance of Blue Spear aboard RSS Steadfast offers a first glimpse of a key element of Singapore’s broader naval modernization effort. The installation also gives the Israel-Singapore missile joint venture a high-profile reference point as it seeks to market Blue Spear to other operators looking to replace their aging Harpoon fleets.

In photos shared with TWZ by Koji Inoue (@kojiinet on X), a container for the missile is clearly visible aboard Steadfast, the third ship of Singapore’s six Formidable class frigates, offering what is believed to be the first publicly available photographic evidence of the weapon actually fitted to one of the ships.

The appearance of Blue Spear on Steadfast comes as the frigate prepares to open its doors to the public during guided tours at the Tokyo International Cruise Terminal on August 21-22.

Singapore had previously disclosed that Blue Spear would replace the class’s legacy Harpoon anti-ship missile as part of a mid-life upgrade (MLU). However, until now, confirmation of the weapon’s installation has largely come through official statements and industry reporting.

The Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) first introduced the RGM-84 Harpoon for its Sea Wolf class missile gun boats (MGB), when they were upgraded in the late 1980s. The Victory class multi-purpose corvettes continued using the Harpoon when they were introduced in the 1990s, and the same missile was then installed on the Formidable class when it came online from 2005 onwards.

Each of the Formidable class could carry as many as 24 Harpoons, if required, with capacity for six quad packs on the missile deck. The likelihood is that the same 24-mille capacity will be retained for Blue Spear, although as configured for its Japan visit, Steadfast has the mimimum fit, with one quad launcher.

Singapore first revealed plans to equip the frigates with Blue Spear in 2023, when a senior Republic of Singapore Navy officer outlined the intended missile upgrade during an interview with Janes ahead of the IMDEX exhibition. Then-Commander of the RSN’s First Flotilla, Colonel Ng Kok Yeng Daniel, outlined the plans during the exhibition preview.

The MLU is considerably broader than the missile replacement. Singapore’s Ministry of Defense has said the programme will also introduce upgrades to the frigates’ combat management, communications, and engineering systems.

Blue Spear is produced by Proteus Advanced Systems, a joint venture between Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Singapore’s ST Engineering. The weapon traces its development lineage to the Israeli Gabriel family of anti-ship missiles, but is intended to provide a modern, multi-role precision-strike capability.

The missile was publicly displayed for the first time at the Singapore Airshow 2022, soon after a contract had been signed with the Estonian Defense Forces to meet its coastal anti-ship missile requirement. In this form, the missile is fired from a truck-based launcher.

Blue Spear was also proposed to the U.K. Royal Navy as a Harpoon successor, under the name Sea Serpent. However, the Interim Surface-to-Surface Guided Weapon (I-SSGW) requirement was ultimately won by the Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile (NSM), a weapon also used by the U.S. Navy, among others.

According to specifications released by Proteus, Blue Spear is a subsonic missile with a range of around 180 miles. It is designed for beyond-line-of-sight engagements and can be employed against both maritime and land targets.

The turbojet-powered weapon incorporates a radio-frequency seeker and guidance system designed to operate in complex electromagnetic environments, including scenarios in which an adversary is employing electronic countermeasures. The missile uses ‘advanced algorithms’ for target discrimination and can be launched in fire-and-forget or fire-and-update modes. Proteus has said in the past that is has considered installing an imaging infrared seeker, if required.

Blue Spear is designed to engage moving targets and can dynamically modify its flight path during an engagement. Its low-level, sea-skimming approach is intended to make detection and interception more difficult for defending forces.

For the Republic of Singapore Navy, the transition from Harpoon to Blue Spear brings a substantially longer-range strike capability to a class of ships that remains a central component of the country’s surface fleet. The Harpoon has a range of around 130 miles and, in the RGM-84C form used by the RSN, lacked a land-attack capability. In the anti-ship role, the missile provides a critical capability for Singapore, considering the dense littoral region and the strategic strait that it sits on.

As well as the pacing maritime threat posed by China, there other potential adversaries in the region are also investing in new ship-launched surface-to-surface missiles, as Roy Choo, a defense journalist and TWZ contributor explained:

“The introduction of the Blue Spear will help the Singapore Navy keep pace with the growing lethality and range of new and upgraded anti-ship missiles being introduced across the region. Indonesia has the Russian-made Yakhont on the Ahmad Yani class frigates and will get the Turkish-made ATMACA missile soon, among the many types it operates. Malaysia was supposed to introduce the Naval Strike Missile on its littoral combat vessels but is now searching for a replacement.”

Meanwhile, Singapore is building a new class of drone motherships, or Multi-Role Combat Vessels (MRCV), the largest and most complex ships the RSN has ever operated. Blue Spear is provided an an option for these hulls, with at least four mounting points, exploiting their modular design.

The MRCVs will form the cornerstone of the navy’s fleet modernization effort, alongside two additional Type 218SG submarines in addition to the previous four, and the Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, which will also provide a significant capability boost.

The Blue Spear program also underscores a decades-old, largely low-profile defense-industrial relationship between Israel and Singapore, one that has produced cooperation across some of the city-state’s most sensitive and advanced military capabilities.

Among the very advanced arms acquired by Singapore from Israel is the Gulfstream G550 Conformal Airborne Early Warning (CAEW) aircraft, four of which were bought from IAI. Singapore’s Block 52 F-16s are equipped with Israeli-supplied equipment, including avionics, electronic warfare kit, and air-to-air missiles. There have long been rumors that Singapore acquired Merkava main battle tanks from Israel, but these vehicles have never been publicly seen.

Now, after sales to Estonia and Singapore, Proteus is pitching Blue Spear as a Harpoon replacement for other nations, with the company eyeing potential customers across Southeast Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

Estimates for the number of Harpoon missiles built range from 6,400 to around 8,000, depending on source. The missile has been ordered by 30 countries, so there is potentially a very significant market for a new weapon in this class.

For the time being, the arrival of Blue Spear aboard Steadfast underscores the scale of Singapore’s ongoing naval modernization, extending the reach and flexibility of one of the RSN’s core surface combatants. As the service introduces new frigate weapons alongside MRCVs, submarines, and maritime patrol aircraft, the missile also offers a glimpse of the increasingly long-range and networked force Singapore is building.

With thanks to Roy Choo.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The Grand Tour is back for a new series, the first since former Top Gear hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May stepped down

The Grand Tour is back in a matter of days – and there’s the perfect mix of drama and fast cars for fans of the hit Prime Video show.

The show – previously fronted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May – has had a complete refresh, with trainspotter and secret petrolhead Francis Bourgeois replacing the iconic trio alongside James Engelsman and Thomas Holland, who are behind the popular YouTube show Throttle House.

The Grand Tour will see guest appearances from Clarkson, Hammond and May as Bourgeois, Engelsman and Holland travel across the globe in search of the most unique vehicles on our roads.

In the first series, the team will tackle some big motoring questions, such as what’s the most unbreakable car in history and can you travel across Colorado undetected in a trio of Japanese microcars.

F1 World Champion Jenson Button also makes a special appearance in the trailer, whilst it also shows the trio head to Malaysia to see all about the country’s rich car culture as well as how little someone can spend on a sports car without it immediately blowing up.

In the new series, they travel through Angola in track-cars, which are quite unsuited for the job. They even test out the greatest American cars including the the Ford Mustang GTD, Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, and $2.75m, 2000-horsepower Hennessey Venom F5 Revolution Evolution against a bunch of fighter jets.

Francis Bourgeois said of joining the show: “Since completing the filming of the series, I haven’t stopped replaying every moment in my head. It has made me laugh, made my heart race and my stomach turn…remembering the tent I shared with Thomas and James filled with sulphuric farts whilst Angolan jackals snooped around outside. It feels as though it was a dream but knowing we will get to share our adventures soon makes me so incredibly excited!”

James Engelsman added: “We took on the West African Desert. We contended with fighter pilots. We even decided to challenge an entire nation’s legal system by protesting from the mountain tops. In doing so, the three of us learned our true strength: How to accept defeat gracefully.”

Thomas Holland shared: “I figured someone would be there to hold our hand the whole time. Nope. We were on our own in some absolutely wild environments in very, VERY questionable cars. What did we learn from this experience? Only that we have very poor decision-making skills. When you watch in September, expect a good laugh. And maybe a few butt clenches…”

The Grand Tour will launch all six episodes exclusively on Prime Video on Friday 4th September.

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California voters are more inclined to back progressives running for office than mainstream Democrats, a new poll found, though a marked generational divide separates those who favor each camp.

Registered Democratic voters over 65 were overwhelmingly more inclined to support a candidate identified as a mainstream Democrat, whereas more voters under 40 favored those more aligned with the party’s left wing, including democratic socialists.

The results, from a new poll conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times, illustrate the highly visible midterm-season debates unfolding within the Democratic Party over age, ideology and the party’s future.

“There’s particular frustration among the younger voting population,” said IGS poll director Mark DiCamillo. “Their views of mainstream Democrats are not that positive, and that’s a long-term problem, I think, for the Democratic Party.”

The poll asked voters about how they perceived candidates described as a progressive, democratic socialist, mainstream Democrat, Republican and MAGA supporter. Voters were asked whether each label made them more inclined or less inclined to back a given candidate, or if they believed there was not much difference or had no opinion.

Among all California voters, a candidate described as “progressive” drew the broadest support — besting both mainstream Democrats and Republicans, as well as democratic socialists and members of President Trump’s MAGA movement. At 40%, support for progressive candidates registered just two percentage points above support for democratic socialists and within the poll’s margin of error, though fewer people felt negatively toward progressives than democratic socialists.

Among registered Democrats, the survey found 60% said they would be inclined to support a candidate identified as progressive; 58% felt the same when asked about a democratic socialist and 48% about a mainstream party member.

The polling offers a glimpse into how California voters feel about democratic socialism, the brand of liberal politics popularized by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D).

The views among all California voters were split, with 38% saying they would be more inclined to support a candidate labeled as a democratic socialist and 38% saying they would be less inclined. That makes the concept both more polarizing and more popular than the idea of a mainstream Democrat.

“To us, it’s honestly an incredibly good thing to hear that by and large, California voters see democratic socialism as a preferable option,” said Misha Kesselman, who leads membership coordination at the California Democratic Socialists of America.

“Being only two percent behind a progressive Democrat is the perfect place for us to be and for our organization to organize from,” Kesselman added. “I don’t see this as our ceiling; this is a great floor for us to start running from.”

Notably, more voters, 36%, said they were less inclined to support a mainstream Democrat than those who said they’d be more inclined, 29%. Twenty-seven percent showed indifference, however, possibly demonstrating that most voters would be fine supporting them in a general election, said Christian Grose, a political science professor at the University of Southern California.

The results could reflect a shift in labeling as much as in politics, Grose said, noting that most California Democrats now refer to themselves as progressive, a term that was not as popular 20 years ago, regardless of policy differences.

“Progressive Democrat in California has really in some ways become a mainstream Democrat, and then ‘mainstream’ is often associated with Washington,” Grose said, referring to the more moderate party establishment.

As the two parties compete for control of Congress in November’s midterm elections, the rise of democratic socialist ideas within the Democratic party has set off a debate among left-leaning leaders and voters about how best to counter Trump’s cultural dominance, appeal to disillusioned voters and create a winning presidential strategy for 2028.

The split does not fully fall along generational lines, but it often overlaps with the growing push by some younger candidates to oust veteran lawmakers, a debate over experience and seniority versus fresh blood.

Republicans have used the phenomenon as a key line of attack, as Trump and others have labeled Democrats as communists and extremists. In recent weeks, Trump argued that Democrats want to “destroy the traditional American way of life.”

“Sadly, young people have not been taught the truth about socialism and communism. It’s a dangerous road, and this is one of our efforts to make sure people know that,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Saturday on Fox News, after launching a website last week dedicated to the idea that socialism and communism have failed.

Meanwhile, many establishment Democrats fear that a far-left candidate would be unable to win a general presidential election and worry a swing in that direction could jeopardize the party’s chances in 2028. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that he does not support the Democratic Socialists of America agenda, further underscoring internal divisions.

Democratic socialism generally centers on an anti-capitalist agenda, including higher taxes for the wealthy and universal healthcare. Many progressive candidates support policy ideas backed by socialists but do not identify themselves as such.

A handful of high-profile progressive primary wins against Democrats backed by the establishment has supercharged the conversation in recent weeks, including this month in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, where progressive Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated a moderate opponent.

But progressives have lost elsewhere, including in Wisconsin, where democratic socialist Francesca Hong last week was defeated in the gubernatorial primary by David Crowley, the more moderate Milwaukee County executive.

California was not host to that type of showdown this year, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, though progressive by national standards, was viewed by many left-leaning voters as a safer or more moderate primary choice. He faces Republican Steve Hilton in November.

In Los Angeles, however, the mayor’s race between incumbent Democrat Karen Bass and democratic socialist Nithya Raman is set to draw national attention. A handful of progressive candidates also advanced in House races, including Randy Villegas, who is challenging Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford); Mai Vang, challenging Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento); and Angela Gonzales-Torres, challenging Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles). Vang identifies as a democratic socialist.

The new polling also showed a generational divide among Republican voters: A higher share of older voters than younger said they would be more inclined to back a MAGA supporter, though all ages favored the Republican category over MAGA.

Seventy percent of GOP voters said a Republican label would make them more inclined to support a candidate, and 46% said the same of a MAGA label. Sixteen percent said they would be less inclined to vote for a candidate with a MAGA label and 29% said it didn’t make much difference.

Among California voters who eschew both the Democratic and Republican parties, either registered as no party preference or with other parties, a progressive candidate drew the most favorable reaction, but they also showed more support for a democratic socialist than a mainstream Democrat.

Those voters were not positively inclined toward right-leaning candidates, with 15% responding favorably to Republicans and 7% to MAGA.

In California, Democrats account for nearly 45% of all registered voters, compared to 25% who are Republican and almost 23% who don’t belong to either party, according the California Secretary of State’s office.

Whether voters’ shifting preferences for the progressive or democratic socialist labels translate into any different policy action from those who are elected is an open question, Grose said.

“The labels are changing things… but it’s not clear yet if it’s changing the actual ideology of voters and elected officials,” Grose said. “What the elected officials do in office who are Democrats, that remains to be seen.”

The Berkeley IGS/Times poll findings are based on an online survey in English and Spanish of 4,207 California registered voters from Aug. 3-9. The results are estimated to have a margin of error of about 2.5 percentage points in either direction in the likely voter sample, and larger numbers for subgroups.

Lawrence Shankland is “too good not to score regularly” and is sure to have a “big influence” at Rangers whether or not he starts games, insists manager Derek McInnes.

Shankland has scored once in five outings since his move to Ibrox and the captain was used as a substitute on Sunday as Rangers beat St Mirren 5-1 for their first win of the season.

The 31-year-old Scotland striker hit 22 goals for Hearts last term working under McInnes.

“When you have a player like Lawrence, who knows his way around the penalty box and how to score goals, I do not worry too much about it,” said McInnes.

“He is too good not to score regularly. He has consistently shown that over a period of time in the Premiership.

“Sometimes people can over emphasise these things. For me, it is a case of letting him play his natural game.

“The best strikers have that instinctive side to their game, where everything looks natural and seamless. I have no doubt he will do well here.”

McInnes chose to start with Ryan Naderi in the Premier Sports Cup victory over St Mirren and the German opened the scoring, while Nico Raskin was skipper.

“I said that when I spoke to Lawrence,” added McInnes. “Being captain does not guarantee anything, and he accepted that. He is not going to stamp his feet about it. Having worked with Lawrence before, he is a brilliant captain and a brilliant boy.

“You want your captain to have a big influence on and off the pitch, and I believe Lawrence will have that.”

Shankland is one of 11 new signings at Rangers and the search is on for another centre forward since Youssef Chermiti is a long-term absentee.

“The priority is at the top end of the pitch,” said McInnes. “Number nines are normally more difficult ones to do, and it wasn’t an area we were looking at before Youseff’s injury.

“We’re hoping we can land on the one that we want and hopefully we can bring them here quickly.”

Aug. 19 (UPI) — President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Dr. Heidi Overton, a White House policy aide, to lead the Food and Drug Administration.

The decision was reported by the Washington Post, The New York Times and Politico, all citing anonymous sources. Overton is an aide at the White House’s Domestic Policy Council and will be tapped to be the next FDA commissioner, sources say.

Overton will replace Marty Makary, who left the position in May, and the Senate will have to confirm her to the position.

The FDA commissioner is one of the most powerful jobs in U.S. health care. The FDA oversees drugs, vaccines, tobacco products, the bulk of the food supply and more. The position has remained open longer than expected as some have turned it down over fears of administration interference, the Post reported.

The position has been run by acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, a friend of Donald Trump Jr., and a former partner at the law firm Jones Day.

Overton is board-certified in public health and general preventive medicine and was a general surgery resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where she also earned a doctorate in clinical investigation. She worked at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank. She has also written articles calling abortion “corrosive” to women. She called abortion pills “far more dangerous to women” and has called for more controls on the pills.

In September, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Overton and Calley Means worked on a Make America Healthy Again strategy report calling for more review of chemicals in food and an increase in oversight over pharmaceutical advertisements, The Times reported.

Makary left the position in May because he disagreed with the administration’s policy of allowing tobacco and e-cigarette companies to sell flavored vapes. The White House had been pressuring Makary to allow the vapes, but he disagreed, citing their appeal to teens and young adults.

The FDA approved mango and blueberry vapes just after Trump had lunch with tobacco executives, The Times reported.

While she is a doctor and has been present for many FDA announcements at the White House, she hasn’t run a large agency before. The FDA has thousands of employees and shapes food safety and pharmaceutical policies.

A girl is taken to hospital in critical condition in what PM Burnham calls a ‘terrible family tragedy’.

Three members of a Palestinian British family have drowned after entering the sea off England’s Sussex coast, the Palestinian embassy in London says.

The embassy announced their deaths on Wednesday, a day after the family went for a swim near Shoreham Fort in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex.

The father, Hossam al-Khawas, was a Palestinian refugee from the Rashidieh Camp in southern Lebanon near Tyre, the Press Association news agency reported.

Police, paramedics, coastguard crews and a lifeboat were deployed at the scene where four people were pulled from the water.

Al-Khawas, a woman and a teenage girl were pronounced dead. A younger girl was taken to hospital in a critical condition.

“The Embassy is closely monitoring the incident and is making the necessary contacts with the relevant British authorities to ascertain its circumstances and to check on the condition of the injured girl,” the Palestinian mission in the United Kingdom said in a statement.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham on Wednesday warned of the dangers of open water swimming after the incident, which he described as “a terrible family tragedy”, the BBC reported.

He said he sends his “best wishes and love” to the family and friends of those who died as well as the girl who remains in critical condition.

Drownings have surged across Europe as people seek relief from the heatwave on the continent with incidents reported in France, Germany and the UK. Experts warned that open-water swimming can carry hidden risks, including cold water shock, strong currents and sudden changes in depth.

WARNING – DISTRESSING CONTENT: New Netflix documentary Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing, investigates the story of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who was found dead in his truck in 2024

John Barnett worked for Boeing for 32 years before turning whistleblower and dying in mysterious circumstances.

New Netflix documentary, Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing, explores the story of Barnett, who publicly condemned Boeing’s safety processes before he was found dead in his truck. He was in the process of testifying against the company.

From 2010, Barnett was employed as a quality manager at the North Charleston plant, which built the longhaul 787 Dreamliner, before retiring in 2017 on health grounds.

After Boeing merged with a former rival McDonnell Douglas, several former Boeing employees alleged the company started focussing more on increasing profits rather than safety and quality.

Barnett told the Today Show before his death: “From day one, it’s just all been about schedule, and hurry up, and just get it done. Push a plane out. We’re behind schedule. We don’t have time to worry about issues that y’all bring up.”

He alleged there were severe production and safety flaws such as defective oxygen systems and metal shavings near critical wiring on the 787 Dreamliner program.

Just before he left Boeing in 2017, Barnett filed a complaint against the company, accusing bosses of retaliating against him for raising safety concerns. He was outspoken on the issue with journalists – and in 2022 appeared in acclaimed director Rory Kennedy’s investigative film Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.

But then, on March 9, 2024, Barnett was found dead in his truck with a gunshot wound to his head.

Deeply affected by Barnett’s death and ongoing concerns about Boeing’s safety culture, Kennedy reunited with her team to produce the documentary sequel, Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing, which is being released on August 19, 2026.

Speaking to the Guardian about Barnett’s death, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Kennedy said: “I was horrified and heartbroken. I spoke to his mom pretty immediately after we had heard that news. She said to me, ‘We need to make sure John’s story gets out there,’ and that was a big part of why we decided to revisit this.

“I’ve never done a documentary follow-up in this kind of way, but we all felt that Boeing is such a big company, and we all fly these airplanes all over the world. I don’t want one of these planes falling out of the sky, and I feel like I have a lot of inside knowledge and also connections to understanding what’s going on inside of Boeing, and I just felt like we’ve got to stay at this.”

Details of the circumstances surrounding Barnett’s death came to light when his mother sued Boeing in a wrongful death suit in March 2025. The complaint alleged that Barnett was subjected to a campaign of harassment, abuse and humiliation after he raised concerns about safety issues. It further claimed that the conduct of the company was “the clear, foreseeable cause” of his death. In September that year, Boeing settled the lawsuit, agreeing to pay at least $50,000 to Barnett’s mother, who, in return, agreed to drop her claims that the company contributed to her son’s death by suicide.

The complaint contained a copy of Barnett’s suicide note, and the annexes presented the full police report concluding that he died by his own hand.

In conversations with Fortune in March 2025, the family’s longstanding counsel Rob Turkewitz added further details on his client’s last hours.

He said that on the evening of March 8, 2024, Barnett left the law offices of Boeing’s outside counsel in Charleston after testifying for two days in his OSHA case against the company. OSHA rules make it unlawful to retaliate against a whistleblower.

Barnett was giving his account of how Boeing allegedly violated its own policies and procedures, and FAA rules, during his seven years as a quality inspector at the North Charleston plant.

He’d delayed a trip back to his home in Louisiana to finish his deposition the next day, which was a Saturday. Videos cited in the police report show Barnett leaving the hotel around 8:30pm, and getting in his orange Dodge truck.

When Barnett failed to show up the next morning for his final round of testimony, Turkewitz called the Holiday Inn to conduct a welfare check. It was then that a hotel employee saw Barnett slumped in the front seat of his vehicle.

Charleston police arrived to discover Barnett barefoot and clutching a Smith and Wesson pistol in his right hand. His right temple showed a bullet entry wound, and an exit wound appeared in the back of his head.

On the seat next to Barnett’s body lay a message written on a single page of a red-covered notebook, with sentences written in all directions.

It contained phrases including: “America come together or die!!! Pray that the motherfk…ers who destroyed my life pay!!! I pray that Boeing pays!!! Bury me face down so that Boeing and their lying ass leaders can kiss my ass.”

Elsewhere: “I can’t do this any longer!!! F-k Boeing!!! Family and friends, I love you’ll [sic].”

“To my family and friends, I found my purpose! I am at peace! I love you more John/Mitch Barnett aka Swampy Fununcle Mitch.”

The complaint also included a heartbreaking email that Barnett sent Turkewitz in 2021, which read: “I can understand the direct costs that we can establish, ie lost pay, bonuses, etc. What I’m struggling with is how do you restore a person’s overall outlook on life? I used to be a very happy-go-lucky guy who loved his job and the products he built. I had a very positive outlook on life. Boeing absolutely destroyed my outlook on life. What is a person’s ‘outlook on life’ worth? How to put a price on that?'”

Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing is scheduled to debut on Netflix on August 19, 2026 .

For mental health support, contact the Samaritans on 116 123, email them at jo@samaritans.org or visit samaritans.org to find your nearest branch

The SEC announced on Tuesday that it had filed a proposal titled “Regulation Crypto Assets”, giving crypto entrepreneurs a clearer, considerably lighter route to raising capital under federal securities law, according to the press release published by the regulator.

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It is the agency’s first formal rulemaking dedicated to crypto asset offerings, building on broader interpretive guidance the SEC issued in March, and would spare qualifying issuers the costly registration process required of most public offerings.

At the centre of the proposal sit two new exemptions.

The “startup exemption” would let an issuer raise up to $5 million (€4.3mn) over a four year period without registering the offering.

A second, the “fundraising exemption”, would permit raises of up to $75 million (€64.7mn) within any 12 month stretch, though issuers relying on it would still need to publish financial statements and meet ongoing reporting duties.

Both routes ask companies to give investors narrative, principles based disclosures, rather than the dense legal filings typically demanded of public listings.

The proposal also sets out a conditional safe harbour that could eventually place certain tokens outside the legal definition of a security, once an issuer has finished, or permanently abandoned, the managerial efforts it promised investors.

It would also override conflicting state registration rules for offerings made under the exemptions, sparing issuers from having to comply separately with individual state securities regimes.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins described the package as a “minimum effective dose” of oversight, protecting investors while leaving builders maximum room to innovate.

The reception of the proposal has been largely warm.

Summer Mersinger, CEO of the Blockchain Association, said the move finally delivers the tailored regulatory clarity the sector has sought for years. Cody Carbone, CEO of the Digital Chamber, likewise praised the plan, pledging support in helping the industry expand within the US rather than abroad.

However, the proposal is far from final. It stays open for public comment for 60 days once published in the Federal Register, meaning its provisions could still change, or be scrapped, before any final rule is adopted.

US Senate stalls, regulator steps in

The SEC’s move comes roughly a week and a half after the US Senate left Washington for its summer recess without advancing the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633), the industry’s flagship bill, which would split oversight of digital assets between the SEC and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

US Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a cloture motion on the bill on 7 August, but lawmakers departed before a vote was held. That motion is now due to come up again on 15 September, a procedural hurdle rather than a final vote, once senators return.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has argued on more than one occasion that only Congress can deliver a lasting, “future-proofed” framework able to survive changes in political leadership, and the Commission says it still backs the bill’s passage.

Even so, with its timetable slipping into autumn, the regulator appears to have decided not to wait, instead using powers it already holds to offer the industry some certainty while lawmakers prepare to resume the debate next month.

SKIP the big rides and rollercoasters for one of the best family days out. The location? One of the UK’s best farm shop villages.

The complex in Cheshire is inside a 250-year-old barn conversion with a farm shop, play area, plenty of shops and even an on-site B&B.

Found in Middlewich, Hopley House is open seven days a week and is popular with families thanks to all it has to offer.

At the centre of Hopley House is its farm shop where visitors can pick up local produce from bread to pastries, meat, fruit and vegetables to cakes.

When it comes to drinks, there are wines, beers and spirits from local breweries and Il Gusto spirits which can be bottled and personalised on-site.

Outside are a selection of plants from shrubs to flowers

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The café is open seven days a week serving up cooked breakfasts, lunch, afternoon tea and kids meals.

There’s also a selection of homemade cakes and alcohol-like beers and boozy hot chocolates.

To entertain the kids, visitors can get competitive on the mini golf course found on-site which costs £5pp.

And children can burn some energy at the play area which has swings, a slide, rock wall and climbing frame.

If that isn’t enough, it even has its own shopping village.

One of the shops is AVM Furniture which sells a selection of antique, vintage and modern furniture as well as garden ornaments.

JO’S Accessories is a ladies’ boutique, there’s also The Crystal Boutique, SKULLS n’ MOR, E a pet shop and a reptile rescue sanctuary.

Families have raved about it, with one saying: “Absolutely perfect place for a large family to stay.”

Another added: “Me, my partner and my two children visited Hopley House last month….. to say we were impressed is an understatement!”

A third simply called it a “hidden gem”.

It also holds events throughout the year – at the moment it has a mini fairground is back with tea cups and a mini big wheel.

Visitors can also stay at Hopley House in one of its rooms which are found inside a converted barn.

Some of the rooms have original barn features, each with en suite or a private bathroom.

Guests can enjoy a cooked breakfast from the café or head to the farm shop for a homemade pizza.

Anyone staying overnight can also make use of a kitchen area which has a fridge and microwave.

Rooms start from £68 based on two people sharing or £42 for single occupancy.

One overnight guest said in a review: “Lovely stay at Hopley guest house, huge big room and the comfiest bed ever! The owner made us feel very welcome.

“My only regret is we didn’t book for longer.”

If you fancy another trip to the farm shop, check out the ‘Harrods of the North‘ that’s loved by Molly-Mae – with forest lodges and hot tubs.

WHY settle for one pretty European island, when you could head to two?

Located just 25 minutes apart, you could head to both Lanzarote and La Graciosa in Spain in one holiday.

Travel experts at Sundeals have shared that you could head to both Lanzarote and neighbouring La Graciosa without having to get another flight.

And the best part? A seven-night package costs as little as £254 per person.

From Lanzarote, it only takes 25 minutes on the ferry to reach La Graciosa, which is a volcanic island with less than 750 residents.

The ferry costs around €32 (£27.37) return per person.

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Sarah Jooste, Product Executive at Sundeals said: “Taking the ferry across to La Graciosa for the day completely changes your perspective of Lanzarote and feels like discovering a hidden island that many visitors never see.”

“For lunch, I’d recommend Casa Enriqueta on La Graciosa, where tapas start from around €6 (£5.13) per dish, while traditional rice and seafood dishes such as paella are typically around €16 (£13.69) per portion, served overlooking the harbour.”

While on the island, you can also head to Caleta de Sebo, which is the main hub of the island where you will find local shops and places serving fresh fish.

For a beach spot, visit Playa de las Conchas, which boasts golden sand and amazing views.

Thanks to the rugged landscape, another popular activity is to head off on a 4×4 Jeep Safari across volcanic land formations.

Prefer hiking? Head up Montaña Amarilla for panoramic views over the sea and coast.

Of course, Lanzarote has many amazing spots too including diving around Museo Atlántico which is Europe’s only underwater sculpture museum, with more than 300 sculptures.

You could also head to Jameos del Agua where you’ll find an underground lagoon inhabited by tiny blind albino crabs found nowhere else in the world.

There is even a restaurant hidden inside the volcanic cave too.

The restaurant serves traditional Canarian dishes but you could also book onto the Insólita Experience guided tour, which includes access to hidden areas of the caves, a tasting at Bar Galería and entry to the Casa de los Volcanes Museum from €41.20 (£35.24) per person.

Sarah also recommends: “Back on Lanzarote, Bodega Rubicón, in the La Geria region, is a brilliant place to experience the island’s unique volcanic wine culture, with tastings from around €22 (£18.82). It is one of those places where the landscape is just as memorable as the wine itself.”

Kevin Nelson, Managing Director at Sundeals said: “Our research tells us travellers are looking for smart ways to book holidays that give them exactly the experiences they want, with flexibility and a great price.

“A two-in-one holiday, where you have a central base but other destinations or countries nearby to spend a day in, are a great way to pack a lot in for a low-cost.

“Lanzarote is a brilliant example of that. Visitors can enjoy everything they expect from a Canary Island escape but also discover a real hidden gem in La Graciosa.

“For anyone looking to make the most of their holiday time, Lanzarote offers something increasingly valuable – the chance to experience several different sides of a destination without spending your trip travelling between airports.”

ORLANDO, Fla. — Across 250 years, only three elected governors out of thousands have been Black — all Democrats and all men, including current Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.

But Moore could soon have company.

With Florida Republicans nominating U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds on Tuesday, there are seven Black major party gubernatorial nominees in addition to Moore — men and women, Democrats and Republicans — on November ballots.

“We do have a unique moment here,” said Moore, who recently became chair of the National Governors Association. He often says that his historic status is “not an applause line” but instead represents a bigger challenge that this country is still looking to overcome.

The Black nominees typically do not focus on the history at stake, instead emphasizing their experience and policy proposals.

“Florida is a great meritocracy in America,” Donalds told reporters Tuesday night after not mentioning his race at all in his victory speech. “I’ll let you guys write about that,” he added.

But many said that more reflective representation matters given the nation’s history, from slavery to Jim Crow and the lingering effects.

“It’s not a secret that some issues in the African American community get ignored and don’t have a voice,” said Aaron Ford, Nevada’s first Black attorney general and now the Democratic nominee for governor. Ford said he brings a focus to issues ranging from voting rights and civil rights to the economy.

Republican Lisa Demuth said she “has never led with any type of identity politics” as Minnesota’s first Black House speaker and now her party’s nominee for governor. “But I recognize the historic state we are in right now,” she said. Michigan Republicans also chose U.S. Rep. John James, who is Black, as their gubernatorial nominee.

Former New York Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat who was not elected but ascended when Eliot Spitzer resigned in 2008, celebrated that the slate crosses party lines. “This is one day when maybe the Democrats and Republicans could stand in front of a statue of George Washington and let him know that we’re finally getting it right,” he said.

Democrats, meanwhile, emphasized that their Black candidates – who also include Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia, Jermaine Johnson in South Carolina and David Crowley in Wisconsin – are especially important after the U.S. Supreme Cour t cleared the way for states to redraw legislative districts that are majority or plurality nonwhite. That was compounded by President Trump’s attacks on diversity initiatives and push to rewrite how the U.S. tells its history of the slave trade and Jim Crow segregation.

“Governors, in many ways, are becoming the last lines of defense against what we’re seeing in Washington,” Moore said.

A challenge for Black politicians, even more so than reaching the U.S. Senate

Karen Finney, who helped push Democrat Joe Biden to select a Black woman as his vice presidential running mate, said Black politicians often are the first and loudest advocates on issues that acutely affect Black constituents. She and others cited health disparities such as maternal and infant mortality and sickle cell disease, and Finney noted that an inflationary economy hits harder in Black communities that, on average, have lower income and net worth than the wider population.

She said it is important for legislators to raise those matters and even more impactful when it is an executive.

“These are people who have the power to shape our lives, and they shape the agenda,” Finney said.

But the governor’s seat has been notoriously hard for Black politicians to reach, even more difficult than the U.S. Senate. Democrat Douglas Wilder of Virginia took office in 1990 as the nation’s first elected Black governor.

“I didn’t become Maryland’s first Black governor because the Democratic Party said, ‘I think it’s time for us to put Wes Moore up in the seat’,” Moore said. “I had to run against the party.”

“I don’t think that the party is doing enough,” Moore added, specifically bemoaning a “negligence” in Southern states where Black voters anchor Democrats’ base.

Stacey Abrams, who lost two Georgia governor’s races, recalled white Democratic power players raising money for her primary opponent in 2018, although she disputed that explicit racism was the issue.

“We do what we’ve done because it’s what we did,” she said. “Black women have not been executives, and the absence of that proof point becomes a self-reinforcing philosophy.”

This time, she noted, Bottoms already has been an executive as mayor of Atlanta.

Democrats and Republicans talk about ‘identity politics’ differently

In Minnesota, history will be made in November when the state elects its first female governor as Demuth competes against Democrat Amy Klobuchar, a U.S. senator. Demuth said she looks forward to a day when such distinctions seem less notable.

“One of the things that I really do look forward to is where it’s already done, where it no longer makes history,” she said. “So I think of young women, little girls that are looking at you, could I ever be governor of Minnesota? I hope when I win, they’re able to look at point to that and say she’s already done it.”

In Georgia, Bottoms told the National Association of Black Journalists last week that she does not “give a lot of talk … about the historical nature” of her campaign. Yet she notes her family’s Georgia ties go “back at least five generations through a plantation in Crawfordville” and that her grandfather had to “walk through these back doors” when he moved to Atlanta. She never mentioned slavery or segregation but said her ancestry “is always present with me.”

Abrams, who has campaigned for Bottoms and other Democrats this year, was more direct, arguing that all politics is identity politics of some kind — and that Republicans’ version is simply more coded.

“When your Constitution specifically strips a race of its humanity, you cannot then later on say identity doesn’t matter and has no effect, and we’ve spent 250 years trying to reckon with that identity” with social, political and legal fights, she continued. “So, it’s deeply disingenuous, if not woefully naive, to say that identity does not matter.”

Race shapes many decisions, but not all of them

Deval Patrick, whose tenure in Massachusetts overlapped with Paterson’s in New York, said his race mattered especially to his Black constituents and what they wanted from him. It was “just different than the expectations of my predecessors,” he said, recalling criticism after he did not visit a Boston neighborhood where a teenager had been killed by gun violence.

“His mother was on the news grieving, and at some point she said while the cameras were rolling, where is Gov. Patrick?” he said. “Nobody had ever asked one of my predecessors to come to a crime scene in a neighborhood. Never.”

In Nevada, Ford said being governor still means recognizing how many core issues – jobs, housing and healthcare – cross demographic lines.

“It could be a white man, a Latino woman. It could be a person urban, suburban or rural Nevada. It could be someone from northern Nevada, southern Nevada. These are the issues that are important to them,” he said.

Patrick, who talks regularly with Ford and Moore, agreed, saying that is not just how a governor does the job, but how a candidate wins it in the first place.

“The successful candidates are the ones who present themselves as candidates for everyone,” he said, “and not candidates for just some.”

Barrow and Sloan write for the Associated Press. Sloan reported from Washington.

The Baleba situation also highlights a strategic change.

In the past, United have almost trailed the players they want to sign, then spent ages trying to complete a deal – or not.

Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong was a case in point in 2022. Erik ten Hag felt certain he could do the deal even though United’s recruitment staff were being told it was impossible.

It was well into August before the club admitted defeat; with defeats by Brighton and Brentford triggering the £70m deal for Casemiro.

This summer, there has been stealth behind their work. It suited them for talk around England’s Elliot Anderson to obscure what they were thinking around initial midfield targets as they knew the Nottingham Forest man would be financially beyond their reach.

The Santos deal was wrapped up within a week. The Tielemans one was less than that.

There has been consideration given to Mount being the ‘third midfielder’ because of his exceptional form in the early part of pre-season.

However, although his early exit in the encounter with Paris St-Germain in Gothenburg on 8 August was described as ‘precautionary’, Mount has still to return from the foot injury, which would only have heightened concerns around his injury record.

Baleba was supposedly off the radar as a third midfielder. Tchouameni, Scott, Kone, Berge and Adams were the ones being monitored. Now United have made their move, it would be a surprise if the transfer was not concluded swiftly.

Evidently, Old Trafford’s recruitment plans are now being controlled to a far tighter degree than was previously the case.

Aug. 19 (UPI) — David Morens, a former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases employee, pleaded guilty to taking part in a scheme to hide federal records during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Morens made his guilty plea on Tuesday in federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses and defraud the United States. The charges stem from his alleged involvement in a scheme to evade Freedom of Information Act requests and the Federal Records Act by hiding federal records.

Morens is one of three people alleged to be part of the scheme. He faces up to five years in prison.

The person referred to as “co-conspirator 1” by the Justice Department was a CEO of a New York-based nonprofit that received the “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” grant in 2014. That grant is a key part of the indictment as its termination precipitated the alleged scheme.

Co-conspirator 1 created a subaward with the grant and awarded it to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan China, which has been the subject of theories that the COVID-19 virus leaked from the lab, sparking the pandemic.

The Justice Department said that Morens and two co-conspirators carried out the scheme after one of the co-conspirators’ National Institute of Health grant was terminated. The three people involved planned the scheme to restore the terminated grant.

In his guilty plea, Morens admitted that he hid emails that related to the pandemic in a personal account to avoid them being publicly released, circumventing public records laws. He had previously explained that he did this to stop the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 and to protect Dr. Anthony Fauci from receiving threats.

Fauci has not been accused of any wrongdoing in relation to the case.

Morens served as a senior adviser at NIAID’s Office of the Director between 2006 and 2022. The Justice Department indicted him in April on five counts related to the plan to hide federal records from the public.

Police added that officers have trawled hours of public and private CCTV footage as part of the investigation, while door-to-door enquiries are also continuing.

The last sighting of either man had been on Friday morning.

Police also said the Chancellor Street property where the bodies were found was the home of one of the victims, and that the two men knew each other.

Det Supt Kelly said: “I am appealing directly to anyone with any information, no matter how small or insignificant they feel it may be, to come forward and speak to us.

“Please do not assume that the police already know the information you have.

“We are keen to hear from anyone who knew Paul and Gary or who was in the Partick area near to Chancellor Street from Friday morning from 09:00, who saw Paul or Gary, or saw or heard anything suspicious.”

Supt Craig Brady said: “I would like to extend my sympathies to the family and friends of Paul and Gary as they try to come to terms with their loss.

“We understand the significant impact this will have on the local community and I would like to thank everyone for their help so far.”

Post-mortem examinations took place on Monday and Tuesday and confirmed the causes of death as being murder.

A major incident public portal has been launched, external as part of the investigation.

Tina Peters was recently released early from prison amid a pressure campaign from President Trump after the former Colorado elections official was convicted of tampering with voting machines.

Now, the top elections official in a conservative California county with a long history of voting controversies is seeking to hire her to help run elections there.

Clint Curtis, the registrar of voters in Shasta County, said on a local radio show Sunday that he planned to hire Peters as the assistant registrar next month, just weeks ahead of the November election.

“Tina Peters, she’s now available, so we’re going to pull her in. She has experience, and she’s able to take the rocks and arrows,” Curtis told the hosts of “Jefferson State of Mine,” a show hosted by leaders of the State of Jefferson secession movement.

When asked about her health, which her attorneys said declined in prison, Curtis, himself a longtime election denier, quipped: “Getting out of prison really helps your ability.”

In response to questions from The Times about the hiring process, Curtis said in an email Tuesday afternoon that “counties are very slow” in bringing in new staffers and that Peters would be brought on “as a consultant.”

“Her duties would be to assist with supervision of the November election,” Curtis wrote. “None of our consultants have access to the voting systems, so she would be insulated from false claims.”

A bank of surveillance screens hangs in the public observation room at the Shasta County elections office in Redding, Calif., in February.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Peters, the former clerk in Mesa County, Colo., was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to nine years behind bars for breaching her county’s voting machines as part of a scheme to show that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump — a claim that has been repeatedly debunked.

She was found guilty of helping an outside computer expert — an associate of pro-Trump conspiracy theorist and MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell — gain unauthorized access to Mesa County’s Dominion election equipment in 2021 and make copies of its hard drive before and after a software upgrade.

Peters was released from prison in June. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, commuted her sentence after months of haranguing from the president. Trump issued a pardon for Peters in December, but since her conviction was for state, not federal, crimes, it fell outside his purview.

‘Monkey business’ and a not-so-open job

In a statement to The Times on Tuesday, Peters’ attorney, Peter Ticktin, said she was “giving consideration to helping in the efforts in Shasta County as there most definitely has been monkey business in the way the election was handled.”

Ticktin, who cited his client’s “effort to get the invasive machines out of our election process,” did not elaborate on which election had alleged problems or what kind of role she had been offered.

The terms of Peters’ parole forbid her from leaving the state without permission from her parole officer, although, after her release, she visited Trump at the White House.

Talk about hiring Peters in Shasta County set off alarm bells across California.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office tweeted Monday that Peters “should still be in prison” and that “the state is investigating this.”

“Tina Peters, she’s now available, so we’re going to pull her in,” says Clint Curtis, Shasta County registrar of voters. “She has experience, and she’s able to take the rocks and arrows.”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

And Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat, wrote on Facebook that talk of her hiring “should be stopped immediately. “

Brent Turner, the Shasta County assistant registrar whom Curtis suggested he would replace, said there’s one glaring problem with that plan: He hasn’t quit.

“I am the assistant registrar, last I checked, and until further notice I’m planning on continuing to serve the public in that role,” Turner said in an interview Tuesday.

Turner said he had not spoken to Curtis for days and that he learned his boss was floating Peters’ name as a replacement from a local reporter who called him Sunday for comment.

On the “Jefferson State of Mine” broadcast, Curtis said of Turner: ”He got sick on me. I was hoping he’d just, like, retire on June 2 and go away and let me fill [the position], but he didn’t.”

Turner said it was “inappropriate” for Curtis to speak publicly about his health and that he had not given him permission to do so.

Miranda Angel, a Shasta County spokeswoman, said in an email Monday that “there is no formal proposal or application” to replace Turner and that “any prospective employee or consultant would go through the same hiring process as anyone else seeking employment with the county.”

An elections office embroiled in controversy

Shasta County made national headlines in 2023 when its Board of Supervisors ditched Dominion voting machines based on unfounded claims of fraud and opted to hand-count ballots for more than 110,000 registered voters — quickly prompting a new state law that banned them from doing so.

Curtis, a 68-year-old attorney whose claims about rigged voting machines stretch to the early 2000s, took over the elections office last spring.

He was appointed by the county Board of Supervisors to fill the position vacated by two previous registrars who resigned for health reasons that they said were exacerbated by the stress of the job.

Curtis stands in the election counting area on Feb. 25 in Redding, Calif. Curtis installed a controversial election observer area filled with cameras trained on election workers’ hands as they feed ballots into machines.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Curtis lived in Florida then, had no previous ties to the area, and had never run an election. He got the position after advocating for hand-counting ballots and bragging in a public job interview that he had worked with Mike Lindell.

In Shasta County, he promptly eliminated nine of the vast, mostly-rural county’s 13 ballot dropboxes. He accused his predecessors in the elections office, without evidence, of stuffing ballots to sabotage conservative Republicans, and he called on federal authorities to raid his office and seize ballots.

Curtis also publicly advocated for Measure B, a voter-approved measure that would eliminate most voting by mail and require ballots to be hand-counted, among other sweeping changes.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the state’s top elections official, sued Shasta County over the citizens’ initiative in mid-June, arguing that it violated numerous state election laws and must be struck down before the November election.

Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin L. Hanna this month issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocks implementation of Measure B, which voters approved in the June primary.

In that same election, Curtis was voted out of office. He will be replaced in January by Joanna Francescut, the former longtime assistant registrar, whom he fired.

A censure — and another reprimand

When Curtis spoke on the radio broadcast Sunday about hiring Peters — with whom, he said, he has regular phone conversations — he was under formal censure by the Board of Supervisors for his treatment of staff.

This spring, the county released the findings of two personnel investigations into Curtis’ conduct that were spurred by concerns raised by elections employees and their union representatives.

An internal investigation and an external probe by Oppenheimer Investigations Group found that Curtis made phone calls related to his own campaign during county work hours and casually threatened to kill, spank, slap or “throat punch” staffers.

He threatened to have one employee dragged out of the office by their hair, according to an internal investigation report by Monica Fugitt, the county’s director of support services.

“Mr. Curtis has demonstrated a clear pattern of unprofessional and abusive conduct toward staff,” wrote Fugitt, who recommended Curtis be physically separated from the elections staff, working at a different physical location or remotely because of his “pervasive abusive conduct.”

Curtis has denied the findings.

The Board of Supervisors censured Curtis on Aug. 11.

He responded by inviting reporters to the elections office in downtown Redding, where he showed them security footage that, he said, showed employees breaking into a room in the building, the news outlet Shasta Scout reported.

A woman walks past a ballot drop box in the Shasta County city of Anderson on Feb. 25.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Curtis allowed reporters to take video of the footage and said he had not discussed the matter with the staffers, Shasta Scout reported.

The county condemned those actions in an Aug. 14 news release, saying he “has repeatedly been advised of appropriate procedures for addressing and investigating personnel matters and advised of the importance of maintaining confidentiality of such matters.”

Curtis, the county wrote, showed “complete disregard for those procedures as well as employees’ due process rights.”

In an email Tuesday, Shasta County deputy chief executive officer Stewart Buettell said the county and its Board of Supervisors do not have the power to terminate Curtis’ employment because he was appointed to fill a vacancy in an elected position.

“As soon as they assume that office, it’s as if they were elected,” Buettell said. To be removed from the office, he said, Curtis would have to be recalled by voters.

A photo published last week by Shasta Scout shows a pair of doors to a room in the elections office containing ballots from the June election. Curtis sealed the doors with locks, duct tape and red-lettered signs that read: “KEEP OUT PER ROV CLINT CURTIS.”

“I had facilities put this lock on and destroy the keys,” Curtis told the news outlet. “So if someone comes … they have to bring a warrant and a bolt cutter. That’s the only way to get in that room.”

Turner, the assistant registrar, told The Times that “Clint seems to be taking issue with some of the ballots in his own race” that he lost.