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Devon Henry paced in nervous anticipation, because this was a project like nothing he’d ever done. An accomplished Black businessman, Henry took on a job the city says others were unwilling to do: lead contractor for the now-completed removal of 14 pieces of Confederate statuary that dotted Virginia’s capital city. “You did it, man,” said Rodney Henry.

Agricultural department workers wearing protective suits have eradicated the first nest of giant "murder hornets" discovered in the United States, vacuuming them out of a tree in Washington state. The nest of Asian giant hornets was found on Thursday by Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) entomologists on a property in Blaine, near the border with Canada, the agency said. They spent weeks searching for the nest, trapping hornets and tracking them, using dental floss to tie tiny radio trackers on the insects, which are nearly two inches (five centimeters) in length and have a painful sting. Before dawn on Saturday, a team of workers dressed from head to toe in protective suits vacuumed the insects out of their nest in the cavity of a dead tree. "Got 'em. Vacuumed out several AsianGiantHornets from a tree cavity near Blaine this morning," the state agriculture department said on Twitter later Saturday, along with a video showing a mass of hornets in a transparent container. It said removal of the nest appeared to have been successful and more details would be provided at a press conference on Monday. Scientists in Washington state have been actively searching for the Asian giant hornet since the first such insect was detected in December 2019 and after one of the wasps was trapped in July in Whatcom County, where Blaine is located. Canada also found Asian giant hornets in two locations in neighboring British Colombia. Several more of the invasive pest not native to the US were subsequently caught, all in the same region. The WSDA believes there was a good chance that there are more nests and "stopping this cold is very crucial," said Sven Spichiger, an entomologist with WSDA, during a press conference on Friday. "If it becomes established, this hornet will have negative impacts on the environment, economy, and public health of Washington State," the WSDA said.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced a new state of emergency on Sunday in an effort to curb soaring coronavirus infections, imposing local nighttime curfews and banning travel between regions in some cases. The measures go into force from Sunday night and will require all regions except the Canary Islands to impose a nighttime curfew and limit the number of people allowed to meet to six. Catalonia was one of the first regions on Sunday to use the new legislation to impose a curfew, which will take effect at 10 p.m. Establishments open to the public will have to close at 9 p.m.

Hotels are beckoning families with "schoolcation" packages that tap into their newfound flexibility to travel during the school year.

The new Singapore-New York route is one of the few new international routes to launch during the pandemic, but the airline is keeping it low-key.

Fox News contributor and former Arkansas Republican Governor Mike Huckabee joins 'Fox & Friends Weekend.'

This luxury flying apartment costs an hour what a New York City studio costs for an entire year. The difference being this one kills COVID in the air.

NASA says the discovery could support deep-space exploration efforts. It will share the findings in a briefing on Monday and stream the audio live.

Lebanon's top Christian cleric urged Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri on Sunday to avoid back-door deals and to quickly form a new government that will start lifting the country out of financial crisis. Veteran Sunni politician Hariri was named premier for a fourth time on Thursday, a year after huge protests against the ruling elite pushed him to quit. Hariri promised a cabinet of specialists to enact reforms set out in a French plan to unlock foreign aid.

Amid the chaos of nationwide racial violence and lawlessness, proponents of Proposition 16 — on the California ballot in November — claim the need for state-sanctioned racial preferences in order to fight alleged systemic racism.Prop 16 aims to overturn Proposition 209, passed in 1996 by California voters, which prohibits racial preferences and discrimination in admissions to public universities, and in hiring and contracting for state jobs.Many Prop 16 supporters talk of the “failed experiment” of Prop 209’s mandate of equality, an assertion as baseless and absurd as it is insulting to the memory of countless Americans of all races — from Union soldiers willing to “die to make men free” in the Civil War to Freedom Riders risking their lives to fight racial segregation in 1961.It is as if Prop 16 supporters are not aware that the North won the war and that Americans today, regardless of their race or sex, are living proof of the level of equality that has been achieved since then.There is likely no country in the world where the fight for human equality has been as successful as it has been in the United States. There will always be racists; but to claim, as the Prop 16 crowd does, that the United States is still a systemically racist country is a lie.Whatever their motives, Prop 16 supporters want to return to the bad old days of judging people by skin color and sex. They disguise their campaign before the public with words such as “diversity” and “a level playing field.” Who could be against that?Many people will likely buy this version. But those who see through it are calling out Prop 16 on its true aim, and these people are often brought in line through the intimidation tactics so regularly employed by the far left. At venues ranging from business organizations -- such as the Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce -- to the general public, anyone who openly opposes Prop 16 is denounced and shamed as a racist. In today’s America, there is nothing worse than being called a racist, so this blunt instrument works on Californians averse to confrontation and on confused, well-meaning people. As such, it takes great courage to refuse to support Prop 16, as groups such as the League of California Cities has done.But when Prop 16 supporters can’t win by honest debate, they turn to the most vicious, weak lies: They are smearing the No on Prop 16 campaign — spearheaded by me, a black man, with a proud multiracial background and with a dedicated multiracial staff — as a white supremacist effort.The Prop 16 proponents are also spending massive amounts of money to buy this referendum, vastly outspending the No on Prop 16 campaign. No on Prop 16, fighting for the foundational principle of equality, is supported by numerous small-dollar donations. Yes on Prop 16 is funded by “woke” billionaires who want to dictate racial preferences to Californians, and by special-interest groups eager to curry favor with Sacramento politicians. Some examples of large donations to the Prop 16 campaign are below: * Amidst an unprecedented pandemic, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Blue Shield of California spent $1.5 million and $500,000, respectively, on promoting racial preferences instead of devoting those resources to Californians’ health. * Pacific Gas & Energy (PG&E) donated $250,000. PG&E’s incompetence has led directly to, or exacerbated, wildfires and blackouts in California. * Quinn Delaney, wife of a real-estate tycoon, contributed $6.5 million; Steve Ballmer, former COO of Microsoft and current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, and his wife donated $1 million. * The Open Society Policy Center, a George Soros outfit pushing left-wing causes, contributed $1 million. * Patricia Quillin, wife of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, donated $1 million; Salesforce contributed $375,000; the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative donated $100,000 — all examples of Silicon Valley money being used to pursue the Left’s racial-grievance agenda.The mainstream media, for its part, whether uninformed or in agreement with the agenda, give plentiful and positive coverage to Prop 16 proponents. The Prop 16 side has cash and clout to go after dissenters -- and it does.They call equality an “experiment.” Our Founding Fathers did not see it as a mere experiment. President Abraham Lincoln didn’t see it as an experiment. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and millions of black people who cried out for freedom and equality in the 1960s didn’t see it as an experiment.In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court had already ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. In 1967, the Court held in Loving v. Virginia that banning interracial marriage is a violation of the 14th Amendment. These rulings were also not experiments.Yet here we are in the year 2020: millions spent to promote racial discrimination, intimidation and smears used to destroy those with a different view.None of this makes sense. Has California gone crazy? A good number of people here certainly do act like it has. It is up to the rest of California to make sure that the race-baiters do not take over, and destroy, this great state. Californians who believe in equality can start by voting No on Prop 16.

The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate on Sunday moved closer toward a final confirmation vote on President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, on Monday, just over a week before Election Day. The Senate voted 51-48, largely along party lines, on Sunday afternoon to limit debate on the nomination, teeing up the final vote that is expected to take place on Monday evening. With Republicans controlling the chamber 53-47 and no indication of an internal revolt against the conservative appeals court judge replacing liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Barrett looks almost certain to take up a lifetime appointment on the bench over universal Democratic opposition.

Well before Operation Warp Speed delivers COVID-19 vaccines en masse, we need to be prepared to distribute them effectively. Here's how we should do it.

Record-high campaign contributions from women helped Democrats take the House in 2018 and now women have their sights set on the Senate.

"It's not everything that we thought it would be. A lot of that comes down to additional expenses that we just didn't see," one working parent said.

Hungary reported 3,149 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, its highest single-day tally and jumping above 3,000 for the first time, the government said. Although coronavirus cases have been rising sharply since late August, Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban is seeking to avoid a repeat of the spring lockdown that sent the economy crashing by 13.6% in the second quarter. Hungarian schools are operating as normal, and apart from closing borders to foreigners, the government has not imposed significant limitations on events.

Venezuelan opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez arrived in Madrid on Sunday, Spain's foreign ministry said, after spending the past year at the Spanish ambassador's residence in Venezuela to escape house arrest. Lopez, in a series of tweets earlier, said he had left Venezuela but did not disclose his location. "Venezuelans, this decision has not been easy, but rest assured that you can count on this servant to fight from anywhere," Lopez said.

An Israeli cabinet minister said on Sunday that a U.S. sale of advanced F-35 warplanes to Qatar could be possible despite Israel's objections to such a deal given the Gulf state's links to Iran and Palestinian Hamas. "I have no doubt that if they (Qatar) want it and are willing to pay, sooner or later they will get it," Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, who sits in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet, told Ynet TV. Reuters reported on Oct. 7 that gas-rich Qatar had submitted a formal request to buy the F-35, a Lockheed Martin plane that has so far been supplied only to Israel in the region.

The Breonna Taylor case just never quite seems to go away. And it shouldn’t. Because it is one of the most tragic cases of policing gone wrong in a Black neighborhood, where an innocent young woman lost her life while lying in bed watching a movie with her boyfriend.Her story continues to resonate, and disturb, because justice has not yet been done in her name—and because the prosecutor in the case tried to use the rules of the justice system, starting with grand jury secrecy, to ensure that justice would not be delivered and to try and keep his actions concealed.Yes, it’s true that Taylor’s family got the largest settlement in the history of Louisville, Kentucky, a record $12 million for a wrongful death action, along with promises of departmental reforms. It is also true that charges were brought in the case against one of the officers involved in her tragic shooting death, only the charges related to the former officer were not for murder, or manslaughter even, they were for “wanton endangerment” for endangering Taylor’s neighbors with gunshots into the walls. That’s right. You read it right. The officer was indicted, not for shooting Taylor, or for wrongfully entering her apartment, but for shooting at a wall—not the young woman lying in her bed watching TV with her boyfriend peacefully in her own apartment when she was killed. She had no criminal record, nor did he. They just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time. The officers involved were serving an arrest warrant for another man who was a past boyfriend of Taylor. Apparently, he was already in custody.But in an unprecedented move, a judge ordered that jurors could speak publicly in this case to refute the account of the grand jury hearings presented by Attorney General Daniel Cameron—whose office argued that the grand jurors should not be allowed to speak about the proceedings, even after he had done so and who has repeatedly said that all charges were considered. When in reality, the jury was never given the option of even considering murder or manslaughter charges according to the two jurors who’ve now anonymously spoken out to tell the truth about the proceedings that Cameron lied or misled the public about.In an interview last week with Good Morning America, Kentucky police officer Sgt. John Mattingly spoke out for the first time to give his perspective on the tragic shooting of EMT Breonna Taylor. He was adamant that the police (including himself) did all the right things: that they announced themselves after knocking on the door. That they knocked on the door at least three times, and that they only fired through the door when fired upon by someone on the other side of the door. What he did not express was remorse for Taylor’s death, or that the police got it wrong by serving a warrant on a house that did not have the person they were looking for: a man named Jamarcus Glover.That was a very different account of the facts from what we had heard to date from Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who shared the harrowing details of what he experienced that night with Gayle King on CBS This Morning. Walker says there was a knock. That they repeatedly asked who was at the door. No answer came. Shots rang out. Walker fired shots back, and that is when Taylor was struck by the bullets. And lay fighting for her life until she died. No ambulance was called. No help to save this young EMT’s life was offered.And that is what sparked protests when this story broke, and again as grand jurors make clear that they were never given a chance to get justice for Taylor. That Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, when he announced after the grand jury proceedings that there would be no murder charges against the officers who entered Taylor’s home with a “no-knock warrant,” did so without revealing what charges the grand jury was asked to consider. They were never offered murder or some lesser charge that addressed Taylor’s death.That is the source of outrage that has kept this case going. That is the source of Black pain that resonates all throughout the nation as we still grapple with the videotaped murder of George Floyd. Our lives simply do not matter. There is no justice in the form of criminal penalties. Settlements, sure. Crazy right the city of Louisville pays out $12 million dollars and agrees to implement police reforms. But not one officer is held accountable. Not one officer has had to answer for killing an innocent young woman, in her own home.The bottom line is they got it wrong. The wrong house. The wrong people inside. They got it wrong. And until Taylor gets justice, everything about this case will be wrong.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Israel's ultra-Orthodox are key to Benjamin Netanyahu's bid to stay in power, but their resistance to coronavirus restrictions is causing tensions.

Former CIA Director John Brennan talks to Yahoo News's "Skullduggery" podcast about President Trump's plan to host a “big beautiful party” after the election that will include the Saudi crown prince known as MBS.