EMERGENCY! NYC carriage horse just collapsed on ice in Central Park with passengers inside and carriage driver spokesperson @CarriageCavalry put the passengers BACK in the carriage + CONTINUED the ride after the collapse! We have video. @NYCMayor @JustinBrannan @nycHealthy

https://twitter.com/nyclass/status/1340704709716430848

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) called a new expected round of direct payments a matter of survival, saying average Americans need further relief for basic necessities.

“We have to get urgent relief to our families. Again, at this point, these are not stimulus checks. They’re stimulating nothing. These are survival checks,” Pressley told CNN’s Abby Phillip on Sunday. “This is about basic needs, about families needing to remain safely housed, about purchasing diapers and formula, inhalers, insulin. And the truth of the matter is $600 will not even cover a month’s rent.”

Asked whether a potential Senate deal could meet those needs, Pressley responded: “I have not seen any text as of yet. So I will need to go through that and see if it's responsive to what my mayors have told me they need, what our community health centers have told me they need, what our families say they need, what our small businesses, our restaurants say that they need. And so, you know, I'm waiting for the text so I can do that.”

Pressley has used the term “survival checks” for direct payments before and blasted reports that the Senate package will reduce a second round of payments to $600 per recipient, noting that in most of the country such a payment would not cover a month’s rent.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/531062-pressley-direct-payments-are-survival-checks

This article contains descriptions of sexual assault.

On Jan. 12, Lisa Montgomery is set to become the first woman executed on federal death row in nearly 70 years. The last executions, both in 1953, were of Bonnie Heady, killed in a gas chamber in Missouri, and Ethel Rosenberg. Ms. Montgomery would be only the fifth woman put to death in a federal civilian execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

On Dec. 16, 2004, Ms. Montgomery drove to Skidmore, Mo., where she strangled a pregnant woman named Bobbie Jo Stinnett, then sliced open her belly and took the baby to the home she shared with her husband, Kevin, in Kansas. The baby survived.

These basic facts, however, are nearly all that is not under dispute in the case. Her post-conviction lawyers, Kelley Henry, Amy Harwell and Lisa Nouri, have sent a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights claiming that Ms. Montgomery’s trial “fell far short of minimum standards of fairness” and thus violated international law, and that the United States government itself bears some culpability for her crime given its abject failure, throughout her life, to protect her from severe child abuse and sexual violence.

On Dec. 1, the commission ruled that the execution would result in “irreparable harm” and requested a delay until it has had the chance to reach a decision on Ms. Montgomery’s petition. The commission’s rulings are not legally binding, but past ones have resulted in stayed executions in Ohio and Texas.

In addition to this petition, more than one thousand supporters have put forth their own letters and petitions, including prosecutors, anti-trafficking and domestic violence organizations, and mental health practitioners.

But none of this has any real bearing on whether Ms. Montgomery’s execution will go forward. Her only chance at clemency rests entirely with President Trump — whose administration has ordered an astonishing six people be executed during his final days in office.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/opinion/lisa-montgomery-execution.html

SCOOP - Sidney Powell was in Oval Office last night as POTUS discussed making her special counsel for election fraud. @KannoYoungs and me

Among those pushing back on the idea was Pat Cipollone, Meadows and even Giuliani. But Giuliani separately pushed DHS this week to seize control of voting machines to examine them for possible fraud. DHS said it has no authority to do that. https://nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/

The meeting got raucous, with various administration members drifting in and out and different people arguing. Powell told others they were quitters, people people briefed on the meeting https://nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/

The fact of the meeting - and Giuliani hope of seizing the voting machines - has alarmed some of the president's advisers, who see his desire to take his refusal to accept the election results as in a dangerous new place https://nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1340349856574038017

Gooood morning! SWAT is decorated and ready to lead the lighted vehicle parade in Roseville tonight 🙌🏻🙌🏻 Tune in to @wxyzdetroit for details! Also on http://wxyz.com